“I wanted this CD to be personal”, says Ralph. “Almost all the tracks have something to do with my life: you could even call Silence a musical autobiography.

He knows his classics, he champions the music of 18th-century gamba virtuoso Forquerais. No-one performs the baroque repertoire of Marin Marais with greater enthusiasm and devotion, but a French chanson or one of Sting’s hits are treasures to him too. Rousseau: “You can’t put me in a pigeonhole. I don’t fit into the standard compartments. For me, music has to do with freedom. This is the idea behind my last two CDs.”

“Now the role of the voice has been taken over completely by the gamba. The gamba sings! If there is a string instrument that can truly sing, it is the gamba. Its colour comes very close to the human voice." The gamba may be a baroque instrument, but adaptations of The Sounds of Silence or Bridge over Troubled Water show how readily at home the instrument is in contemporary repertoire. Rousseau: “This undoubtedly has to do with the instrument’s pure sound. Unlike the cello, the gamba’s sound is not associated with the full and romantic sound of the 19th century. It is precisely the natural, fragile sound of the gamba that makes it so exceptional, so multifunctional.” (from the linernotes written by Oswin Schneeweisz)