Amandine Beyer and Gli Incogniti

“The music is bewitching and endlessly inventive, and the performances, rich in spontaneity and a sense of exploration, are wonderfully addictive,” The Guardian says of Amandine Beyer and Gli Incogniti’s False Consonances of Melancholy. The project celebrates pioneering Italian Baroque violinist-guitarist-composer Nicola Matteis, a key figure in the violin’s skyrocketing popularity in 17th-century London. With expertise and execution beyond compare, Beyer captures the unique musical traits that shifted English tastes from the popular French style to a newer, more Italian approach. Additional intrigue is found in the program’s pairing of Matteis’s works with those of his better-known English contemporary, Henry Purcell, who is believed to have been directly influenced by Matteis’s novel approaches.