Une Larme

Rosario Conte – baroque guitar

About the album

The CD “Une Larme” is a tribute to the great Italian guitarist Francesco Corbetta and to Robert De Visée, who is often regarded as his pupil. With the help of the transparent and delicate sounds of the baroque guitar, the emotions of the transience of all beauty are explored – the triumph of time over beauty itself.

Almost all of the works played by Italian lutenist and guitarist Rosario Conte on this CD are taken from Corbetta's La Guitarre Royalle (Paris, Bonneüil, 1671), a book that he published in Paris at the court of the Sun King Louis IX and dedicated to him in a later edition.

In fact, the (baroque) guitar, with its gallant, gentle sound, was a very popular instrument among the French nobility at that time and was also played by the king himself.

The recording was made in an Italian monastery in great silence and seclusion, with the audible space complementing the musical ideas, so to speak.

Rosario Conte perfectly captures the special magic of this music with his highly virtuosic, never strained, yet dynamic playing, giving the compositions, which were first performed over 300 years ago, a very personal and emotional character that is immediately understandable to modern listeners.