To mark her return to the recording studio after CDs of Tartini and Albinoni (both awarded a Diapason d’Or), Chiara Banchini joins forces with Jörg Andreas Bötticher to present her version of Johann Sebastian Bach’s sonatas for obbligato harpsichord and violin BWV 1014-1019. This interpretation is notable, among other features, for the use of a German harpsichord with the disposition 16', 8', 8', 4', freely reconstructed by Matthias Kramer (Hamburg, 2006) after Christian Zell.

Born in Danzig in 1626, Balthasar Erben was a cosmopolitan. When he applied for the position of Kapellmeister of the main church of St. Marien in his hometown at the age of 27, the council granted him a generous scholarship so that he could "look around the world and perfect himself as a composer". For five years, Erben traveled throughout Europe, visiting all the centres of musical culture of the time, including Rome. His compositional style, which was developed during this time, is correspondingly distinctive: a combination of different influences, cleverly interwoven. The Abendmusiken Basel offer an impressive collection of instrumental and sacred works by the composer who is unfortunately little known today.

Balthasar Erben, born in Danzig in 1626, was a cosmopolitan. When he applied for the position of Kapellmeister at the main church of St. Mary in his home town at the age of 27, the council granted him a generous grant so that he could "look around the world and perfect himself as a composer". Erben was on the road in Europe for five years and visited all the centers of musical culture up to Rome.

The organ works of Gottlieb Muffat (1690-1770), imperial court and chamber organist in Vienna since 1717, are based on the classical genres, which Muffat, however, knows how to skilfully combine with the musical language of his time. His most important organ works remained unprinted during his lifetime and have only survived in copies, thanks in part to the Viennese Minorite Father Alexander Giessel. Only in recent years has his collection been made accessible in a modern edition, which Jörg-Andreas Bötticher has recorded here for the first time. The three organs of the monastery church of Muri in the canton of Aargau, which are among the best preserved baroque organs in Switzerland, were at his disposal.

The Italian violinist and composer Carlo Zuccari (1704-1792) worked from 1741 in Milan, where he was the leader of Giovanni Battista Sammartini’s famous orchestra. In the 1760s he was in London as member of the Italian opera orchestra and published there his “True Method of Playing an Adagio”); in 1765 he returned to Milan.