Anonymous Violin Concertos

In 2020 I discovered the violin concertos of Henry-Jacques De Croes, a Belgian composer from the Baroque period, in the Musik- och Teaterbiblioteket in Stockholm. At that moment, a new adventure began, which led to a first recording and concerts by Le Pavillon de Musique: an ensemble dedicated to performing forgotten or lost works. This copy of the first edition of De Croes' violin concertos is the only complete copy that has been preserved; its journey to the Stockholm library remains shrouded in mystery. This library also houses a large collection of manuscripts that are blank and thus anonymous; several of these contain works of exceptionally high quality, from which I selected four violin concertos. Each of these concerti has a completely different musical character and is also written by a different hand, so it can be assumed that they were written by four different persons.