As an instrument from Italy, one that was exotic and evocative of Mediterranean atmospheres, the mandolin was very much in fashion in France until the end of the Century of Enlightenment: a fact also confirmed by many iconographic and musical sources. Pizzicar Galante, an ensemble that stands today as a benchmark for the interpretation of the galant literature for mandolin and continuo, has been acclaimed for the “finesse, creativity and spirit” (Olivier Fourés, Diapason) and “communicative energy” of its performances (Sébastien Llinares, France Musique). For its second recording with Arcana, it offers a compilation of the finest music played during the veritable “golden age” enjoyed by the mandolin in Paris from the 1760s to the Revolution. It is a rare and unexplored repertoire in which the dazzling virtuosity of Anna Schivazappa, a specialist in historical mandolins, dialogues with the beguiling and charismatic voice of Marc Mauillon.

La Dame de mes Songes, Dulcinea, as sung by Alexandre Arnoux and Jacques Ibert in the third of the four Songs of Don Quixote (1932), is La Dame de mes songes. It could also be Spain, as dreamed of, at least occasionally from the 1830s to the 1930s, by most French composers who usually reduced it to Andalusia and what they believed to be flamenco. If they stop over in Andalusia, the performers of this disc also travel to Old Castile, Extremadura and Murcia with the help of composers such as Henri Collet, Federico García Lorca, Emiliana de Zubeldía or Raoul Laparra and Jacques Ibert.

The solo pieces by Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe presented here were written around 1690 and are part of a manuscript included in the archives of the municipal library in Tournus, Burgundy. Hence its name: the ‘Tournus Manuscript’. The first modern edition of the manuscript was published in 2013 by Edition Güntersberg, prepared by Herausgegeben von Günter and Leonore von Zadow. Until then, only a facsimile edition by Minkoff had been published, one which is long since out of print. I came across the pieces quite by accident while searching through the music shops that populate the Rue de Rome in Paris.

Marin Marais (1656–1728) besides being Louis XIV’s court musician, was a prolific composer. He composed both operas, certain of which were very successful, instrumental music and some (lost) religious vocal music. As a viol player he published five books which include some of the most interesting and beautiful music for the viol. These five books also are chock full of performance instructions both for the left hand as well as the bow hand. They are a gold mine for viol players and are as relevant to teaching a musician good technique on the viol nowadays as they were when originally printed in the late seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century.