Jean Rondeau plays Sweelinck: Fantasia cromatica

Melancholy Grace by Jean Rondeau presents two sides of melancholy in Baroque music. The expression through chromaticism is here illustrated in Dutch composer Sweelinck’s Fantasia cromatica. Discover the album: The French harpsichordist has conceived the album as a somber but eloquent dialogue between two contrasting voices: melancholy conveyed through chromaticism and melancholy conveyed through the musical expression of tears and weeping. Among the eight ‘chromatic’ composers are Frescobaldi, Luigi Rossi, Luzzaschi, and Sweelinck, while the ‘weeping’ composers are Dowland, Bull, Gibbons, Valente, and Scheidemann (who has an anonymous piece attributed to him). For the chromatic pieces of the program, including this piece by Frescobaldi, he records on an Italian-style harpsichord made by Philippe Humeau in 2007 after an anonymous early-18th-century model. __________ Warner Classics ► Website: Subscribe to