Scarlatti’s single-movement sonatas or exercises are his greatest musical legacy. Largely designed for the Infanta, who became Queen of Spain in 1746, the music exists in a number of 18th-century manuscripts, some possibly bequeathed to the great Italian castrato Farinelli. Each of the sonatas in this volume exemplifies the limitless variety of Scarlatti’s imagination, from ‘crush’ notes and surprising pauses, through virtuosic moto perpetuos, bell evocations and busy counterpoint, to delicately restrained phrases and delightful syncopation.

Marin Marais published his Quatrième Livre de Pièces de Viole two years after the death of Louis XIV, establishing himself as the undisputed master of the genre and providing pieces not only for musicians who had achieved some skill on the viol but also for the most virtuoso players. Here Marais reshaped the classical forms, altering the traditional sequence for the suites and making an increasing use of character pieces. The sometimes whimsical imagery and the new freedom of form that these pieces contain reach their peak in the astonishing Suitte d'un goût étranger; these thirty or so pieces employ as yet unheard-of keys and offer a multitude of characters and representations that can tend towards the exotic. Breaking further new ground, and somewhat influenced by the Italian trio, Marais ended the Quatrième Livre with two suites for three viols, a genre he claimed to be new to France.

Johann Sebastian Bach composed his most renowned organ works — the Toccatas, the Fantasia in G minor and the Passacaglia in C minor — in Weimar, in the stylus fantasticus so beloved of his Northern German masters Buxtehude and Reinken. Bach here follows in his predecessors’ footsteps in all of these large-scale works: the freely inventive writing in the preludes is linked to the rigor of the fugal construction and so brings them to a majestic conclusion.

Telemann was among the most admired and prolific of composers and his compositions encompass virtually all genres and instrumentations known in his lifetime. The ‘Six Ouvertures,’ strangely neglected for many years, reveal his inventive and imaginative writing for solo harpsichord. They contain elements that suggest an amalgam of French and Italianate influences, whether ‘ouverture-suite’ or three-movement concerto or sonata. Also evident, in the central movements, is Telemann’s preference for Polish folk music, of whose ‘true barbaric beauty’ he was an ardent admirer. Gaku Nakagawa was born in 1993 in Japan. He began playing piano at the age of four, and in 2012 entered the University of Tokyo to study philosophy. Without ever having a harpsichord lesson, he became the first prize winner of the 27th YAMANASHI, Japan, international competition for early music in 2014. This is his debut recording.

For the 400th anniversary of Praetorius' day of death, the ensemble put together a collection of vocal and organ compositions quite representative for his ouevre. The recording was made at St. Mary's Church in Lemgo, using a Scherer organ dating from 1613. Founded by Jeroen Finke in 2015, La Protezione della Musica has quickly developed into a recognized ensemble for historically informed performance practice. The focus of our work is primarily on the music of the early baroque. Our audience is enthusiastic about virtuosity, coupled with the joy of playing and the commitment to not only (re-) perform well-known works.