John come kiss me now

"John come kiss me now" is a colorful collection of English court, chamber and dance music from the 17th century, played on period instruments in a wide variety of instrumentations by the Freiburg early music ensemble "La Beata Olanda" (in English: "The beautiful Netherlands"): Claudia Hoffmann (baroque violin and pochette), Gerald Stempfel (tenor viol, treble viol, various recorders), Thorsten Bleich (historical plucked instruments) and Tina Speckhofer (harpsichord).

The thematic focus of this production is the juxtaposition of very different musical worlds of the time - on the one hand, there are serious and thoughtfully composed suites by Matthew Locke (1621-1677), obviously composed for courtly purposes, for devotional listening and relaxation of the mind. On the other hand, there are exuberant dances from John Playford's "The English Dancing Master", an adventurous collection of dance tunes and songs that have survived only as melodies, leaving plenty of room for free arranging and improvisation. This has been used extensively on this CD!

Claudia Hoffmann plays the Playford dances on this recording on a pochette built according to historical models, the so-called Tanzmeister violin, which gives these pieces a very special coloring and an exciting sound. The gambist and recorder player Gerald Stempfel plays almost exclusively Renaissance recorders built by himself, each unique in timbre and character. Thorsten Bleich plays a whole collection of lute instruments on this CD - Renaissance and Baroque guitars, a chitarrone with metal strings appear in the Playford dances, theorbo and archlute in the Locke suites...

The CD was recorded in August 2008 in the monastery church of Auhausen, a place that not only sound-wise, but also atmospherically through its incredibly creative, sometimes funny, sometimes serious historical wall and ceiling paintings seemed as if it was made for this kind of music to be created here.