Le Mercure Galant (The Royal Academy of Music Bicentenary Series) Charlotte Spruit, Sergio Bucheli, Jonathan Manson

• Johann Paul von Westhoff (1656 - 1705): Suite for Solo Violin in A Major:
• 1 Westhoff: Suite for Solo Violin in A Major: I. Prelude 02:24
• 2 Westhoff: Suite for Solo Violin in A Major: II. Allemande 02:10
• 3 Westhoff: Suite for Solo Violin in A Major: III. Courante 01:52
• 4 Westhoff: Suite for Solo Violin in A Major: IV. Sarabande 03:05
• 5 Westhoff: Suite for Solo Violin in A Major: V. Gigue. Autre Gigue 01:48
• Robert de Visée (1655 - 1725): Pieces in D Minor:
• 6 Visée: Pieces in D Minor: No. 1, Allemande "la Royalle" 02:05
• 7 Visée: Pieces in D Minor: No. 2, Sarabande 02:09
• 8 Visée: Pieces in D Minor: No. 3, Mascarade. Rondeau 02:05
• Michel Lambert (1610 - 1696): Le repos, l’ombre, le silence:
• 9 Lambert: Le repos, l’ombre, le silence 02:39
• Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (1665 - 1729): Violin Sonata No. 1 in D Minor:
• 10 Guerre: Violin Sonata No. 1 in D Minor: I. [Adagio] 02:24
• 11 Guerre: Violin Sonata No. 1 in D Minor: II. Presto 01:54
• 12 Guerre: Violin Sonata No. 1 in D Minor: III. Adagio 00:51
• 13 Guerre: Violin Sonata No. 1 in D Minor: IV. Presto. Adagio 01:41
• 14 Guerre: Violin Sonata No. 1 in D Minor: V. Presto 01:48
• 15 Guerre: Violin Sonata No. 1 in D Minor: VI. Aria 04:09
• 16 Guerre: Violin Sonata No. 1 in D Minor: VII. Presto 02:04
• Johann Paul von Westhoff: Sonata for Violin and Basso Continuo in A Major "La Guerra":
• 17 Westhoff: Sonata for Violin and Basso Continuo in A Major "La Guerra": I. Adagio con una dolce maniera. Allegro 02:24
• 18 Westhoff: Sonata for Violin and Basso Continuo in A Major "La Guerra": II. Tremulo adagio 00:46
• 19 Westhoff: Sonata for Violin and Basso Continuo in A Major "La Guerra": III. Allegro overo un poco presto 00:41
• 20 Westhoff: Sonata for Violin and Basso Continuo in A Major "La Guerra": IV. Adagio 00:54
• 21 Westhoff: Sonata for Violin and Basso Continuo in A Major "La Guerra": V. Aria adagio assai 01:19
• 22 Westhoff: Sonata for Violin and Basso Continuo in A Major "La Guerra": VI. La guerra cosi nominata di sua Maesta 00:41
• 23 Westhoff: Sonata for Violin and Basso Continuo in A Major "La Guerra": VII. Aria tutto adagio 01:29
• 24 Westhoff: Sonata for Violin and Basso Continuo in A Major "La Guerra": VIII. Vivace. Gigue 01:32
• Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643 - 1704): Sans frayeur dans ce bois (Arr. for Violin and Lute by Charlotte Spruit):
• 25 Charpentier: Sans frayeur dans ce bois (Arr. for Violin and Lute by Charlotte Spruit) 03:34
• Total Runtime 48:28

Info for Le Mercure Galant (The Royal Academy of Music Bicentenary Series)

A welcome addition to the Royal Academy of Music Bicentenary Series, violinist Charlotte Spruit’s debut album Le Mercure Galant recreates the intimate atmosphere of a seventeenth-century Parisian salon, where the city’s elite gathered to enjoy the latest musical treasures. Some of that musical elite is represented here: the prodigious Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, who was one of Louis XIV’s favourite composers, the King’s cherished lute player Robert de Visée, the illustrious violinist and composer Johann Paul von Westhoff, plus Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Michel Lambert. These distinguished composers all featured one way or another in Le Mercure galant, a prominent magazine reporting the vibrant cultural life of the French court. Charlotte is joined by Sergio Bucheli (lute) and Jonathan Manson (viola da gamba).

Charlotte Spruit, violin
Sergio Bucheli, theorbo
Jonathan Manson, viola da gamba

Charlotte Spruit
is a soloist and chamber musician, praised for her passionate and energetic performances. Charlotte won the first prize as well as the audience prize and the Genuin Classics prize at the Leipzig International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in 2022. She also won the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) International Auditions held at Wigmore Hall in 2023 and was named Classic FM rising star in 2024. ​

Recent solo engagements include performances at the Wigmore Hall in London, Konzerthaus Berlin, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. As a soloist, Charlotte has performed with renowned orchestras, including the Residentie Orkest The Hague, The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Les Ambassadeurs ~ La Grande Ecurie, the Pauliner Barockensemble, and Ensemble Esperanza. ​ ​

A passionate chamber musician, Charlotte has collaborated with acclaimed musicians including Janine Jansen, Rachel Podger, Gidon Kremer, Tabea Zimmermann, Lawrence Power, and Christian Tetzlaff. She is regularly invited to perform in festivals, including the Chamber Music Connects the World festival at the Kronberg Academy, the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, Bachfest Leipzig, and the Mendelssohn on Mull Festival where she performed with the Doric String Quartet.

Charlotte also enjoys exploring innovative ways of bringing music to audiences, for example by bringing together different forms of art. She has collaborated with artist Jérémie Queyras, creating performances combining painting and music. Together they won the first prize at the Goodmesh Concours in 2022. ​

Charlotte began her violin studies aged 4 with Coosje Wijzenbeek. She studied at the Guildhall School of Music with David Takeno, and at the Royal Academy of Music with Ying Xue, Rachel Podger, and Pavlo Beznosiuk, where she was awarded a Bicentenary Scholarship and the HRH Duchess of Gloucester Prize upon graduation. ​

Charlotte is looking forward to a busy 2024-25 season, including a solo recital at the Wigmore Hall, Beethoven’s Triple Concerto at the Cello Biennale in Amsterdam with Jean-Guihen Queyras, Kristian Bezuidenhout and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, and a recital at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Charlotte plays an 18th-century anonymous Italian violin, kindly on loan from the Dutch Musical Instruments Foundation.

Sergio Bucheli
Born in Mexico City, Sergio Bucheli started playing the classical guitar before moving to the UK to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School thanks to a bursary funded by the Rolling Stones. In September 2016, Sergio was awarded the ABRSM and Christopher Hogwood Scholarships to pursue his undergraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music with Elizabeth Kenny where he studied the lute, theorbo and baroque guitar.

A sought after continuo player, Sergio is the principal lutenist of La Nuova Musica, The English Concert and a “New Ensemblist” with Arcangelo. He also plays with The Irish Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Marsyas, Early Opera Company, English Baroque Soloists and Fretwork.

Sergio is a keen chamber musician and often collaborates with Lawrence Power and the Collegium orchestra for the West Wycombe Chamber Music Festival. He is also a frequent duo partner with soprano Ruby Hughes.

Jonathan Manson
enjoys a busy and varied career as a performer on both cello and viola da gamba. Born in Edinburgh to a musical family, he received his formative training at the International Cello Centre under the direction of Jane Cowan, later going on to study with Steven Doane and Christel Thielmann at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. A growing fascination for early music led him to Holland, where he studied viola da gamba with Wieland Kuijken at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.

For ten years he was the principal cellist of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, with whom he performed and recorded more than 150 Bach cantatas and, together with Yo-Yo Ma, Vivaldi’s Concerto for two cellos. Nowadays Jonathan devotes most of his time to chamber music, performing repertoire ranging from the Renaissance to the Romantic. He is a founding member of the viol consort Phantasm, which has toured worldwide and made more than twenty recordings; several of these have won major prizes, including Gramophone Awards in 1997, 2004 and 2017. Jonathan is also the cellist of the London Haydn Quartet, whose latest volume of Haydn’s complete quartets (op. 64) has just been released on the Hyperion label. Highlights of their last seasons included tours to Australia, Japan, Canada and the USA.

A long-standing partnership with the harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock has led to critically acclaimed recordings of the Bach sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord, and, together with Rachel Podger, Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin en concert. In recent years Jonathan and Trevor have joined forces with flautist Emmanuel Pahud and violinists Matthew Truscott and Sophie Gent, leading to two best-selling recordings of Bach and tours of Europe, the USA and the Far East. Jonathan frequently appears as a principal and continuo player with the Dunedin Consort, Arcangelo, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and other leading early music groups. Recent highlights have included recitals with Elizabeth Kenny, Carolyn Sampson, Iestyn Davies, Peter Whelan and Laurence Cummings, being invited to play the solo viol part in George Benjamin’s opera Written on Skin at the Royal Opera House, and an appearance as viola da gamba soloist with the Vienna Philharmonic. As a concerto soloist he has appeared at the Wigmore Hall and the South Bank Centre, as well as further afield, in Hong Kong, Potsdam, the Haydn Festspiele in Eisenstadt and New York’s Carnegie Hall.

Equally passionate about teaching, Jonathan has been professor for baroque cello and viola da gamba at the Royal Academy of Music in London since 2003, and he is a regular guest at the Guildhall School of Music, the Royal College of Music, Trinity Laban Conservatoire, Birmingham Conservatoire and the Royal Welsh College. He has also been invited to teach on numerous courses around the world, including those in Germany, Israel, Hong Kong, Portugal, Iceland and the USA, as well as closer to home, at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

This album contains no booklet.