专辑简介

Each of the composers featured on this recording were proponents of the stylus fantasticus, a term which had its roots initially in the improvisational and virtuosic style of organ toccatas and fantasias of composers such as Frescobaldi, and which was later transmitted north through composers like Froberger. The Austro-German school of violinist-composers of the seventeenth-century, including Bertali, Schmelzer, and Biber continued this tradition in Austria, and it was carried on, to varying degrees, in the works of Buxtehude and Bach in Germany. In 1650 the music theorist and polymath Athanasius Kircher wrote, “[stylus fantasticus] is especially suited to instruments. It is the most free and unrestrained method of composing, it is bound to nothing, neither to any words nor to a melodic subject…” By 1739, composer and theorist Johann Mattheson described it as “now swift, now hesitating, now in one voice, now in many voices, now for a while behind the beat, without measure of sound, but not without the intent to please, to overtake and to astonish.” For Mattheson, stylus fantasticus not only described a style of composition, but a free and improvisatory style of performance.

This recording by Chatham Baroque features stylus fantasticus sonatas for violin, viola da gamba, and continuo (theorbo & chamber organ) from Baroque Austria and Germany. Performed by Chatham Baroque with Andrew Fouts (baroque violin), Patricia Halverson (viola da gamba), Scott Pauley (theorbo & archlute), and Adam Pearl (chamber organ). This is Chatham Baroque’s second CD release on its own in-house label, following seven previous CD releases with Dorian/Sono Luminus.