Hardly any other instrument has experienced such a dramatic journey through society since its creation as the hurdy gurdy: while it was still played in churches, monasteries and royal houses in the Middle Ages, it fell into the hands of beggars and peasants during the Renaissance, where it remained until the 18th century.

It was not until the pastoral fashion and the desire of the French aristocracy to escape into an Arcadian dreamscape that peasant instruments such as the hurdy gurdy (vielle) and bagpipes (musette) came into fashion. These pastoral instruments were so omnipresent in Rococo Paris that even Queen Maria Leszczyńska, wife of Louis XV, played the vielle. The fascination with this instrument would eventually lead to more than three hundred published works between 1720 and 1780, including famous composers such as Rameau, Boismortier and Chédeville, as well as a great number of virtuosos. It is thanks to Bâton, Boüin, Danguy, Dupuits and Ravet – these ‘Maîtres de Paris’ – that we now have access to an extensive virtuoso repertoire that has always explored and expanded the technical and sonorous limits of the instrument. 

‘Les Amusements d’une heure’, which takes its name from two oeuvres by Charles Bâton and Jean-François Boüin, explores the music of these 18th-century hurdy-gurdy virtuosos. A colourful bouquet can be heard, ranging from courtly dances to compositions that are stylistically ahead of their time, whereby the central motifs of pastoral fashion – those of an idealised country life – are always in the foreground. Les Vielleux de la Reine will play suites and sonatas by Bâton, Boüin, Danguy, Dupuits and Ravet, which were composed for two baroque hurdy gurdies.