Johannes Schenck  (Amsterdam, 1660-c.1720) enjoyed a considerable reputation as a virtuoso gamba player.  He published an impressive collection of works, dating from 1687 onwards. With ten opus numbers to his name, Schenck was the by far most widely published of seventeenth-century Dutch composers. Two of his collections are dedicated to the violin of which Il Giardino armonico armonico consistente in diverse sonate a due violini, viola di gamba e basso continuo Opus 3 (1691), until recently was believed to be lost. But a surviving example was recently located by Pieter Dirksen.

 

It is extraordinary music, perhaps the best of Schenck’s works. Nowhere else in Schenck’s works is the influence of Italian instrumental music so obvious; the clearest influence is the trio sonatas of Arcangelo Corelli but there are also traces of Giovanni Legrenzi’s style as well as allusions to contemporary German and Dutch publications. These twelve sonatas demonstrate an astonishing variety of affects through which the composer displays a noteworthy sensitivity for the different keys, lending each sonata its own particular character.

 

La Suave Melodiawas formed in 1998 to explore the trio sonatas of Dietrich Buxtehude and the Pièces de Clavecin en Concertsof Jean-Philippe Rameau. They met with immediate success as prize-winners in the 1998 Van Wassenaer Concours for Early Music and have since been highly acclaimed in both the concert hall and the recording studio. The members of the ensemble come from four different continents and consider chamber music their great passion.