“Biondi and friends summon the refined manners, graceful, lighthearted gestures, rococo freshness, even in a sense the lacy embroidery and heady perfume of Louis XV’s decadent 18th-centruy Parisian court … a haunting evocation.”
Early Music Today
September 2017
“Moments of pure magic can be savoured above all in slow movements, but also when ingeniously incorporated within the contrasting ideas of faster ones…Biondi conveys this subtle blend of ‘beau chant’ and virtuosity with vitality and sensibility providing his own brief cadenzas where he feels they are called for.”
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
August 2017
“Brightness and delicacy reign, their allegros mostly see velocity playing second fiddle to mood, and even in the face of yawning temptation it’s refinement that always carries the day; Biondi himself equally brings a Leclair-worthy combination of tenderness and precision to his solo lines. All in all, Leclair couldn’t have been displayed in a more warmly faithful light.”
Charlotte Gardner, GRAMOPHONE
August 2017
“Biondi’s playing has a melting purity, and a precision offset ever so subtly by languid elasticity and nuance. His small band of strings and continuo find equal warmth in accompaniment, ever vital but luxurious in tone.”
THE SCOTSMAN
June 2017
EDITOR’S NOTES
Jean-Marie Leclair epitomized the idea of an eighteenth-century virtuoso-composer, one whose compositional output largely reflects his activity as a performer. Whilst the French school possessed precursors such as Jean-Féry Rebel, it is very much to Leclair that it owes its genuine development. The virtuoso violinist became a highly sought-after teacher, and a full generation of musicians were recipients of his teaching.
Today, we are aware of the style employed by Leclair in his violin playing through his own writings and concert reviews from the time. His uncompromising ideal of performance is of a truly Appolonian nature: precision and integrity in execution, economy with the use of effects, accurate intonation and nobility of expression – all features brought to this new recording by Fabio Biondi and his already legendary ensemble, Europa Galante. The scholar Louis Castelain of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles provides the booklet notes.
Discography