In 1707 Joseph Marchand published his seven Suites de pièces mêlée[s] de sonates pour le violon et la basse. Now completely forgotten, Marchand was one of the king’s musicians under Louis XIV, playing the basse de violon in the prestigious Chapelle Royale, the 24 Violons and the Petits Violons du Roi. He was renowned as a teacher, and as a musician he was gifted with a “very singular playing style”. His suites were the first in the repertoire to make use of the perilous double trill. In some respects, his music bears witness to the Italianisation of musical tastes, but in the sheer abundance of his musical ideas, the beauty of his harmonies, his virtuosity, particularly in the bass parts, and his concern for the balance of forms and voices, Marchand is not so much an epigone as an heir to the art of Marin Marais, Sainte-Colombe or François Couperin.
Playing the violin, the pardessus de viole (the highest-pitched member of the viol family), the positive organ, the viola da gamba or the harpsichord, the {oh!} trio – Martyna Pastuszka and Krzysztof and Anna Firlus – revive here a gem of the early eighteenth century, with all its poetry and refinement of expression.