"Fanfaronade" is a French expression from the 18th century and means something like "arrogant boasting". The repertoire on the new CD by Juliane Laake and her ensemble Art d'Echo was largely created at the court of a ruler who declared himself to be the sun-like centre of the universe - a fanfaronade like no other, which certainly rubbed off on his court musicians. Antoine Forqueray was a musical prodigy. At just 17 years of age he was appointed court gambist in Paris. He was highly favoured by the entire court nobility and his contemporaries already agreed that he was the greatest gambist of his generation. His compositions are surprisingly unconventional and spectacularly virtuosic. Marin Marais was a student of the then famous gambist and gamba teacher Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe. This enigmatic personality, about whose life almost nothing is known, who held no court or ecclesiastical office, went down in music history as the father of the French gamba school and produced a whole generation of outstanding gambists. Marais, whose undisputed crown, was able to take up the coveted position of royal court gambist at the age of 23. He published five books full of exquisite gambist works and eventually became conductor of the royal opera.

Unlike Forqueray, Marais did not seek to overwhelm his audience with amazement and horror, but to delight and even enchant them with perfect elegance and refinement. We know almost nothing about Louis Heudelinne's life, not even his exact dates of birth. Only his small, fine oeuvre bears witness to him and his art. This requires not only mastery of familiar gambist difficulties but also virtuoso fluency on the violin. His extremely beautiful and elaborate work, the first printed collection of solo treble viola da gamba music, did not, however, elicit the slightest response from his contemporaries. So it remains something of an insider tip in the extremely rich French viola da gamba repertoire.