Trio Sonata No. 1
Unarum Fidium, Sonata tertia
Unarum Fidium, Sonata quarta

Johann Schmelzer was born in Austria in the early 1620s. Little is known of his early life and musical education; the earliest recorded mention of him is as a cornettist at Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral in 1643. He was appointed court violinist in 1649 and spent the rest of his career at the Hapsburg court, forming a close relationship with Leopold I. He was director of music for Leopold’s coronation in 1659 and was eventually appointed Kapellmeister in 1679, the first non-Italian to hold the post. He died of the plague the following spring. Besides being a virtuoso violinist, Schmelzer was a prolific composer.  He produced over 150 dance suites, both ballets, and court social dances, as well as masses and several operas, but it is his instrumental music that is best known.

Published in 1664, his Sonatae Unarum Fidium is the earliest collection of violin sonatas to be published in German-speaking states. These sonatas for violin (or flute), with harpsichord accompaniment, are in the Italian Baroque style popular at the time. Not surprisingly, they have a dance-like quality,  filled with lyricism and some freewheeling virtuosity.

Sonata “La Cornara”

Giovanni Legrenzi was born near Bergamo in 1626. He likely received his early musical training from his father, a violinist and composer. He was ordained as a priest in 1651 and worked as chaplain and organist at Santa Maria Maggiore Church in Bergamo. He served as maestro di capella at a number of churches in northern Italy before taking a position at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice in 1681; after being appointed maestro di capella there in 1685, he enlarged the orchestra and completely reorganized the music. As a composer, Legrenzi was adept at a variety of forms. He wrote 19 operas, masses of liturgical music, plus several volumes of chamber music; he was internationally renowned for his instrumental sonatas. In fact both J.S. Bach  and G.F. Handel lifted themes from Legrenzi’s compositions for use in their own.

The sonata, “La Cornara”, was originally scored for two violins and continuo. It appeared in 18 Sonatas, Opus 2, published in 1655.

Sonata Sopra la Monica

Biagio Marini was born in Brescia in northern Italy. While still in his teens, he was hired as a violinist at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice where Claudio Monteverdi was music director. One of the first violin virtuosi, he travelled widely, holding posts in a number of Italian cities including Parma, Ferrara, Milan, Bergamo, and Brescia, as well as in Brussels and Dusseldorf, and he spent almost thirty years as a court musician at Neuberg an der Danau before returning to Venice, where he died in 1663. While he wrote a significant amount of vocal music, his instrumental music was ahead of its time. He was one of the first to use string tremolos, he contributed to the development of the sinfonia and sonata forms, and he was an early promoter of the solo with accompaniment format.  His instrumental music shows an uncommonly fine melodic gift, and has a rhythmic flexibility that relieves the rhythmic monotony of other early Baroque instrumental music. The Sonata Sopra la Monica, Opus 8, number 45, was first published in 1629.

Révélation Radio-Canada 2013-2014 and Breakthrough Artist of the Year (2012 Opus Awards), recorder player Vincent Lauzer graduated from McGill University where he studied with Matthias Maute. He is the artistic director of the Lamèque International Baroque Music Festival in New Brunswick. In October 2018, his most recent recording of Vivaldi's concertos with Arion Baroque Orchestra was awarded a Diapason d'Or by the famous French magazine Diapason.

Winner of several prizes in national and international competitions, he has been awarded the Fernand Lindsay Career Award, a scholarship given to a young promising Canadian musician for the development of an international career. Vincent received the Béatrice-Kennedy-Bourbeau Award at the Prix d’Europe 2015. In 2012, he won the First Prize at the Stepping Stone of the Canadian Music Competition and the Career Development Award from the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto. In 2009, he was awarded the First Prize and the Audience Appreciation Prize in the Montreal International Recorder Competition.

Vincent is a member of Flûte Alors! and Les Songes, two ensembles with whom he has toured Eastern Canada with Jeunesses Musicales Canada. Vincent regularly performs as a soloist with Arion Baroque Orchestra, La Bande Montréal Baroque, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, and Les Violons du Roy. He has played in various series and festivals in Canada and in the United States as well as in Mexico, France, Germany, Spain and Belgium.

Vincent teaches at the Université du Québec à Montréal, at CAMMAC music camp, for the Montreal Recorder Society, for the Toronto Early Music Players Organization and at Université de Montréal’s École des jeunes.

Tristan Best is an early-string instrument player currently based in Montreal, Quebec. With roots in New York and Nova Scotia, Tristan came to Montreal in 2016 to study viola da gamba and early music performance. Tristan now holds a B.Mus and M.Mus in viola da gamba performance after completing his studies at McGill University in 2021 under the tutelage of Betsy MacMillan and Elin Soderstrom. Tristan performs frequently with Montreal-based ensemble Les Méandres, has participated in the Montreal Baroque Festival and Oasis Musicale, and has attended the Amherst Early Music Festival since 2016.

Aside from bass viola da gamba, Tristan also performs on the treble and tenor viols in consort, and the lirone. Tristan is currently exploring the repertoire of music for baryton trio, researching historical precedents for the realization of figured bass on the viola da gamba, and studying methods of historically informed improvisation.

Hailed internationally for his “colorful, kinetic performances” (All Music Guide) which “abound in vitality” (Early Music America), Hank Knox performs on harpsichord in concert halls, churches, museums, galleries, and homes around the globe. A founding member of Montreal’s Arion Baroque Orchestra, with whom he has toured North and South America, Europe and Japan, Knox also regularly performs, records and tours with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Les Violons du Roy, le Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, and l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, among numerous other ensembles.  As one of today’s busiest musicians in the field of Early Music, Knox’s musical collaborators have included violinists Elizabeth Wallfisch, Monica Huggett, and Stefano Montanari, lutenist Steven Stubbs, baritone Max van Egmond, and conductors Christopher Hogwood, Trevor Pinnock, Sir Roger Norrington, and Andrew Parrott.

Dedicated to sharing the unique sounds of antique harpsichords, as well as fine copies of historical instruments, Knox has released a number of acclaimed recordings on rare instruments. He has released two collections of Frescobaldi keyboard works, on a 1677 Italian harpsichord, for the ATMA Classique and early-music.com labels, along with works by D’Anglebert performed on a copy of one of the few upright harpsichords in existence, made by Montreal builder Yves Beaupré. A recording of Handel opera arias and overtures in transcriptions by William Babell was recorded on three different exceptional antique instruments from the treasured Benton Fletcher collection at Fenton House in London. Knox’s most recent recording features transcriptions of music by Francesco Geminiani, performed on a 1772 Kirkman harpsichord. A solo recording of works by J.S. Bach, performed on a copy of an 18^th-century Flemish instrument, will be released in 2013. Hank Knox can also be heard on numerous recordings with Arion and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestras for early-music.com, ATMA, Analekta, CBC, Titanic, and Collegium labels, as well as on national broadcasts for Radio-Canada and CBC.

Hank Knox teaches harpsichord and continuo in the Early Music program at McGill University in Montreal, where he also conducts various instrumental and chamber music ensembles including the McGill Baroque Orchestra. A William Dawson Scholar in recognition of his achievements in Early Music, Knox held the post of Director of McGill’s Early Music program for over 20 years and was awarded the Thomas Binkley prize for an outstanding university collegium director by Early Music America in 2008. Knox continues to direct a series of Baroque operas for Opera McGill, which have included Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Lully’s Thésée, Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea and Il ritorno d’Ulisse, and Handel’s Agrippina, Giulio Cesare, Alcina, Semele, Imeneo, Radamisto and, most recently, Rinaldo.

Hank Knox earned a Master of Music in harpsichord performance from McGill University, where he studied with John Grew, which he followed by studies in the Netherlands, in Italy, and with Kenneth Gilbert in Paris. When he is not playing or conducting, Knox may be found hurtling down a ski hill not too far from his home in Montreal.