TOURNEE GENERALE
...a colourful collection of lute music...

with Sofie Vanden Eynde (renaissance lute & theorbo)

This urbane programme is inspired by the Grand Tour, an extended period of European travel on which well- heeled young men and women embarked to mark their majority at around the age of 21. The tradition of the Tour had taken root by 1660 and continued to flourish well into the 19th century, following a more or less fixed route which took in the towns and cities of modern Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands. The Tour became a rite of passage, and allowed any youthful indiscretions to be committed far from home.

The pieces included here reflect what visitors might have heard on the Tour, encompassing English, French, Italian, German, and Belgian music of the period performed on theorbo and Renaissance lute.

Music by John Dowland , Alfonso Ferrabosco, Robert Johnson, Robert Ballard, Robert de Visée, Neusidler, Nicolas Vallet