Luogo e data di registrazione		Saint-Lambert-des-Bois, Yvelines (Francia) - ottobre 1977
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer		Michel Bernstein
	Recording Supervision		Benjamin Bernfeld, Pere Casulleras
	Edizione LP		TELEFUNKEN - 6.42366 AP - (1 LP - durata 49' 30") - (p) 1978 - Analogico
	Originale LP		ASTRÉE - AS 19 - (1 LP - durata 49' 30") - (p) 1978 - Analogico
	Prima Edizione CD		ASTRÉE - E 7762 - (1 CD - durata 49' 30") - (c) 1988 - AAD
	Note		Produced by Astrée

The viola da gamba has been known since about 1500 and is of Spanish or Italian origin. Although the scientific language interpretation of the name is disputed, it is nevertheless remarkable that the name viola (Italian) or viole (French) is associated with the Provencal violar: to play the vielle (fiddle). From the 16th century onwards, however, the terms fiddle and to fiddle were increasingly used in a derogatory sense: the viols had developed from their use as a minstrel’s instrument into a favoured instrument of the music-making bourgeoisie and music performance at court. The addition “da gamba” indicates that the instrument is held with the knees (in Italian “gamba”) as opposed to the viola da brazzio, held by the arm. Its method of construction is characteristic, with the body tapering upwards, with the flat base slanting, sometimes rooflike, up to the neck, the curved sides and the outward-pointing C-shaped sound holes, as well as the frets attached to the fingerboard at semi-tone intervals. In most cases there is a further sound hole on the soundboard before the bridge, artistically designed as a rosette. Since the 16th century six strings have been the rule, and for playing in ensemble, as was cultivated in England, France, the Netherlands and Germany, there were instruments in various tunings. From these emerged as the most important instrument the French tenor bass tuning, the basse de viole, also referred to simply as the viole, with the abbreviated description of gamba. The present-day double bass resulted from the contrabasso da gamba (also the violone). Solo gamba music originated in France, and Saint-Colombe, one of the many virtuosos at the time of Louis XIV, introduced in 1675 a seventh string in order to expand the performance possibilities. Italian violin makers on the other hand did not go in for building gambas, and the instrument does not play a noteworthy part in Italian music. In Germany it was certainly regarded as a tonal enrichment and an alternative to the cello. Bach for instance used the cello throughout in the orchestra and in chamber music, but accorded appropriate tasks to the viola da gamba with the three sonatas, the arias with obbligato gamba in the Passions and in the sixth Brandenburg Concerto. The change in style in the middle of the 18th century pushed the viola da gamba into the background. Thanks to the preoccupation with baroque music over the past fifty years or so, interest has been revived in the viola da gamba. Recent work connected with solo gamba music has acknowledged the singularity of the seven-string gamba and its applicability to such music. An instrument of this kind is played in this recording. Antoine Forqueray (1672-1745) was in his day a famous viola da gamba player and Maitre de Musique to the Duke of Orleans. The movements of his suite are provided with headings which have to be construed, in the sense of Couperin’s harpsichord works, as musical portraits or genre pictures, one of which he dedicated to his famous contemporary and to himself. Gerhard Schuhmacher (English translation by Frederick A. Bishop)