The Centre de musique baroque de Versailles presents the complete 12 Violin Concertos by Jean-Marie Leclair: a major and virtuoso work of the violin repertoire that mixes the Italian concerto with the art of French ballet.----

Jean-Marie Leclair is the most eminent representative of the French violin school in the eighteenth century. After several trips to Piedmont where he trained at the Italian violin school, Leclair made a career as a soloist and composer, in the city, notably at the Concert Spirituel where his concertos were regularly played, but also at the Court as violinist of the Chambre and the Chapelle royale.

His concertos, of great formal quality, have a particularly dense and contrapuntal writing, uncommon in France at that time and no doubt brought back by Leclair from his many trips abroad. The soloist’s virtuosity is all the more formidable because it is always at the service of great musicality. These works radically transformed violin playing in the French repertoire.

The Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. X No. 4 in F is in three movements (Allegro ma poco, Aria andante gratioso and Allegro), for a classical string orchestra: violins 1 & 2, viola, basso (cello, organo).