Baroque stars share their musical journey so far

Two old friends whose musical journeys began five decades ago in their native Sweden have made an album showcasing their talents.

The Marais Project - Jennifer Eriksson and Tommie Andersson - have released an album called Two.

• Two masters at work
• Chopin and Mozart to die for
• Jazz on a winter’s day
• Gods behaving badly

Two old friends whose musical journeys began five decades ago in their native Sweden, going on to become pillars of Australia’s early music scene, have recorded an album showcasing their individual talents as instrumentalists and culminating in their own arrangement of a suite by the French Baroque composer who inspired their band, Marin Marais.

Two, featuring viola da gambist Jennifer Eriksson and lutenist Tommie Andersson, was originally planned as a concert for the Marais Project’s 2020 season, but when COVID-19 put a stop to that instead they took it to the recording studios. The result is a thoroughly charming compilation where each musician takes a turn, with Andersson alternating between a gallichon, a kind of bass lute popular in the 18th century, and Baroque guitar.

The Marais Project's new album Two.

The two are joined on the last track by Susie Bishop, a singer and violinist who has also appeared with Eriksson’s jazz-tinged electric band Elysian Fields.

Andersson has augmented the sparse gallichon repertoire with lovely arrangements of Handel’s Sonata for Musical Clock and Mozart’s Adagio for Glass Harmonica, as well as three pieces for guitar by aristocrat and lutenist-composer Losy von Losenthal, while Eriksson performs solo works by the obscure French composer Jacques Lambert du Buisson, a contemporary of Marais, and German composer Carl Friedrich Abel, and friend of the “English Bach”, Johann Christian.

She also commissioned Sydney musician and composer Paul Cutlan to write a suite for viola da gamba and harpsichord, Spinning Forth, and she included the Sarabande from it on this collection.

But the highlight of the album is Eriksson and Andersson’s arrangement of a suite cannibalised from two works by Marais.

“We have explored so many of his suites over the years and there is always a sense of achievement in committing another of the great man’s works to record,” says Eriksson. “Tommie and I know each other so well, and know the music so well, that it just flows from us!”

After this, Bishop’s lovely rendition of an early 18th century anonymous song, J’avois cru qu’en vous aymant, is the icing on a very tasty cake.

Two is available as a CD for purchase at buywellmusic.com for $25 or the Australian Music Centre, or as a download from iTunes and for streaming on Spotify and Apple Music.