about this recording:
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many members of the bourgeoisie and of Europe’s ruling families enjoyed playing the viola da gamba. One of the instrument’s last royal enthusiasts was Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, who became King of Prussia in 1786, on the death of his uncle, Frederick the Great. Friedrich Wilhelm engaged one of the century's finest professional gamba players, the great virtuoso Ludwig Christian Hesse (1716-1772) as his teacher. The two of them must have spent a lot of time playing duets, to judge by the large amount of music in the Berlin collections arranged by Hesse and others for two viols. The works performed here are found in a manuscript of sonatas arranged for two viols, called Recueil des Plus belles Sonates a basse de Viole avec acompagnement ou a deux basses sans Violon par les mellieurs auteurs François et Italien.