Marais: Pièces de viole, Book 1

Here is the start of a great adventure: the complete recording of the five books of pieces de viole of Marin Marais. The First Book, published in 1686, cnotains a dozen suites, two of which are scored for two bass viols and continuo. It also features a very moving Tombeau for 'Monsieur Meliton', probably one of Marais's teachers, and a set of variations on a theme given to the composer by an 'estranger', which foreshadows one of the principal compositions of his Second Book, the Couplets des Folies d'Espagne.