Forqueray: Forqueray Unchained

The debut album of the young viola da gamba player, André Lislevand, is centred around the great viol works of Antoine Forqueray.
Forqueray Unchained - perhaps a provocative title, but a fitting allusion to the freedom in Forqueray's music. Music without chains, without stylistic constraints, in perfect balance between the French and Italian styles. A particularly intriguing melange when one thinks about the diverse nature of the two musical cultures: where the Italian blazes in virtuosity and extrovert force, the French cultivates the magic of tone, the colours and formal perfection.

André Lislevand - with a French mother and a Norwegian father, but born and raised in Italy - perfectly embodies the musical dualism that is the focus of this album. Together with Paola Erdas on the harpsichord, Jadran Duncumb on the theorbo, and with a cameo by his father, Rolf Lislevand, he presents a programme where Forqueray's visionary viol works are playfully combined with pieces by his contemporaries, free and unchained in a game of virtuosity and sensitivity.

That influence is as indisputable as it is intriguing, especially when one reflects on the differing nature of the two cultures: where the Italian style glitters with virtuosity, power and extraversion, the French cultivates the magic of sound, subtle colours, and the formal perfection of music.
André Lislevand, the son of a French mother and a Norwegian father but born and raised in Italy, here in the company of Paola Erdas at the harpsichord and Jadran Duncumb on the theorbo (and with a cameo appearance from André's Norwegian father, Rolf Lislevand), perfectly embodies the musical internationalism that is the focus of the album, in which Forqueray's visionary music for viol is cross-pollinated by the presence of other composers from his time, in a continuous interplay of wonderful stylistic ambiguity.