Exalted melancholy A violin and a lute: with this choice line-up, our pair of instrumentalists – and frequent partners on the current Baroque music scene – illuminates some aspects of an elusive amalgam that constitutes the 17th-century English notion of melancholy. The inconsolable ‘Mad Lover’ of the album title is reimagined by Théotime Langlois de Swarte and Thomas Dunford as a character from the reign of Charles II: a tale told through music from the pen of such violin virtuosos as the prodigiously gifted Nicola Matteis. Heightened by the exuberance and abandon common to those musicians transplanted from Italy, the beguiling nuances of this language of yearning and loss continue to echo in the popular music of our time.
1 Eccles: The Mad Lover Suite - Ground. Aire V 2 Purcell: Sonata Sesta for Violino Solo - I. Adagio 3 Purcell: Sonata Sesta for Violino Solo - II. Allegr 4 Purcell: Sonata Sesta for Violino Solo - III. Adagio 5 Purcell: Sonata Sesta for Violino Solo - VI. Allegro 6 Dunford: Improvisation for Solo Lute 7 Matteis: Variations on la Folia 8 Matteis Jr.: Fantasia in a Minor 'Alia Fantasia' 9 Matteis: Suite in a Minor - V. Sarabanda Amorosa (Adagio) 10 Matteis: Diverse Bizzarrie Sopra la Vecchia Sarabanda O Pur Ciaccona 11 Purcell: Prelude in G minor, ZN. 773 12 Eccles: Violin Sonata in G minor - I. Grave 13 Eccles: Violin Sonata in G minor - II. Courante 14 Eccles: Violin Sonata in G minor - III. Adagio 15 Eccles: Violin Sonata in G minor - IV. Vivace 16 Matteis: Suite in G Major - I. Preludio 17 Matteis: Suite in G Major - II. Grave 18 Matteis: Suite in G Major - III. Sarabanda 19 Matteis: Suite in G Major - IV. Aria Burlesca 20 Matteis: Suite in G Major - V. Capriccio 21 Matteis: Suite in G Major - VI. Giga Al Genio Turchesco 22 Eccles: Sonata Quinta in E minor - I. Andante 23 Eccles: Sonata Quinta in E minor - II. Courente 24 Eccles: Sonata Quinta in E minor - III. Largo 25 Eccles: Sonata Quinta in E minor - IV. Presto 26 Matteis Jr.:Fantasia in C minor, "Con Discretione" 27 Eccles: A New Division Upon the Ground Bass of "John Come and Kiss Me" 28 Eccles: The Mad Lover Suite - Ground. Aire Iiia
