Hagen - Sonatas for Lute & Strings

In this music, Hagen gives us a fascinating glimpse into the world of a composer working at the very close of an era, working with an instrument unable to adapt to-or perhaps considered inappropriate for-the rapidly approaching Classical world of Haydn and Mozart. Hagen's music doesn't flow in the long arcs of sound we associate with Weiss or J.S. Bach. Nor does it incorporate many of the "broken" style brisé textures so effectively used by earlier French baroque lutenists. Instead, Hagen's lute style takes it's lead from the world of galant music, perhaps from the music of Falckenhagen, who was one generation his senior. "Being galant," as Wilhelmine's cultural hero and frequent correspondent Voltaire so succinctly put it, "in general, means seeking to please." Hagan's music does this, certainly, but it is also tinged with an edge of melancholy. -Peter Danner

Galanterie specializes in the wonderfully rich and rarely heard 18th century, repertoire for lute and strings. Galanterie performs music by students of the great Silvius Leopold Weiss: Johann Kropffganss and Adam Falckenhagen, as well as works by Viennese masters Franz Joseph Haydn and Karl Kohaut. This unique, beautiful, virtuosic and sometimes quirky literature has one foot in the baroque period and the other in the classical. Led by lutenist/guitarist John Schneiderman, this ensemble features of of North America's foremost baroque violinists, Elizabeth Blumenstock, and baroque cellist, William Skeen, a rising young star on the early music scene.