After being the king of court instruments in the seventeenth century, a symbol of refined entertainment, the lute was gradually abandoned in the following century. A small group of virtuosos and composers nevertheless refused to accept this predicted decline: these musicians moved the epicentre of it's influence to the courts of Vienna, Bayreuth and Dresden, adapting the codes and forms of the galant style to the lute, which for the first time integrated the orchestra in it's own right. Miguel Rincón and Il Pomo d'Oro bring together concertos by Kohaut, Fasch and Kleinknecht (world premiere), and a trio by Hagen, also recorded here for the first time.

These splendid, inventive and virtuoso works reveal the richness of timbre and expression of an instrument that, at the crossroads of the Baroque, the Sturm und Drang and the galant style, was in it's last throes.