They include three violin sonatas, the earliest by a Czech composer, which musicologist Jirí Kveton argues form a ‘triptych’ honouring the Holy Trinity. Like Biber’s famous Rosary Sonatas, they use different scordatura tunings and demand equal measures of virtuosity, rhetorical prowess and artistic imagination from the soloist. La Gambetta’s excellent first violinist, Elen Machová, meets the challenge with aplomb. The fourth instrumental work is the Parthia Amabilis, a less overtly virtuosic suite for violin and viola tuned simultaneously in different scordaturas.

The three vocal works are a motet, Anima mea dilecta, for solo soprano and 2 violins; the festive Arietta Cordialis venerating St John Nepomuk for 5 voices and pairs of violins, gambas and trumpets; and the Threnodia Hujus Temporis (‘Threnody About Our Times’), a dialogue between Truth and Deceit for soprano and bass with continuo. The singers all have the pure, luminous baroque-style voices that are the glory of today’s Czech Early Music movement. Especially captivating are soprano Hana Blazíková’s tenderly wistful Anima mea dilecta and bass Michael Pospísil’s teeth-gnashing rendition of Deceit in the Threnody.

La Gambetta’s other instrumentalists are also superb. The lavish 8-strong continuo team is augmented by a baroque triple harp and calichon (a five-string lute variant), to justify whose inclusion Kveton quotes a 1693 Bohemian source.A triumph. CHRISTOPHER PRICE

MUSICUS SALUTARIS
JAN IGNÁC FRANTISEK VOJTA
La Gambetta
Arta F10141
2006 - 65:54 min.