The Trio Sonata through Two Centuries

Formed in 1978, London Baroque enjoys the position of being one of the most experienced and long-lived baroque chamber groups. Combining 8 CDs originally released between 2003 and 2013, the present boxed set of trio sonatas can be seen as the fruit of all those years of research, experiment and discovery. The trio sonata was the primary vehicle for chamber music in the seventeenth and at least half of the eighteenth centuries. Its history mirrors other developments throughout the whole of the baroque era. This set is chiefly concerned with those for two violins and continuo, with occasional digressions into those for violin, bass viol and continuo, and one with viola replacing the second violin. Like the string quartet in later ages, most composers (with some notable and regrettable exceptions) tried their hand in the form. The customary addition of a figured bass part played on a harpsichord or organ around 1600 meant that middle parts of the old contrapuntal style could be excluded and chamber music soon began to favour the trio sonata texture. 150 years later, with the string quartet, the process was reversed as the viola took over the middle ground previously occupied by the keyboard.

Composers featured:
Nicolaus A Kempis
Carl Friedrich Abel
Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni
Thomas Augustine Arne
Charles Avison
Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach
Dietrich Becker
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber
John Blow
Joseph Bodin de Boismortier
Giovanni Maria Bononcini
Francesco Antonio Bonporti
William Boyce
Giovanni Battista Buonamente
Dario Castello
Francesco Cavalli
Maurizio Cazzati
Giovanni Paolo Cima
Louis-Nicolas Clérambault
John Coprario
Arcangelo Corelli
Francois Couperin
Louis Couperin
Charles Dollé
Thomas Erskine
Andrea Falconiero
Johann Friedrich Fasch
Domenico Gallo
Jean Nicolas Geoffroy
Orlando Gibbons
Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi
Johann Gottlieb Goldberg
Johann Gottlieb Graun
Jean-Pierre Guignon
Carolus Hacquart
John Jenkins
Johann Kaspar Kerll
William Lawes
Gaspard Le Roux
Jean-Marie Leclair
Giovanni Legrenzi
Matthew Locke
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Marin Marais
Biagio Marini
Tarquinio Merula
Giacinto Pestolozza
Pietro Locatelli
Nicola Porpora
Henry Purcell
John Ravenscroft
Jean-Féry Rebel
Giuseppe Samartini
Christopher Simpson
Giuseppe Tartini
Georg Philipp Telemann
Francesco Turini
Marco Uccellini
Johann Vierdanck
Giovanni Battista Vitali
Antonio Vivaldi
Matthias Weckmann