New CD: Spanish Traveling Virtuosi

“Spanish Traveling Virtuosi” is the first CD of ensemble La Guirlande, founded and led by Basel-based flautist Luis Martinez Pueyo. The programme is based on three galant and virtuosic trio sonatas for flute, violin and continuo by Joan Baptista Pla (1720-1773), combined with a solo piece for each of the group members.

On this CD I play a sonata by the quite unknown Joaquín Nicolás Ximénez Brufal (1742-1971), who must have been a great violinist and musician, in many ways comparable to his German and French contemporaries Pisendel and Leclair. This piece, in a remarkably late galant, almost classical style, is highly virtuosic but (in my opinion) never compromises its elegance and its expression for cheap effects. It is another example of real violin music, in which the technical challenges are always within the natural possibilities of the instrument.