About the album

 ATMA presents the first CD by Pallade Musica, the 2012 Grand Prize winners at the Early Music America Baroque Performance Competition in New York. Pallade Musica brings together four of Montreal's most promising Early Music performers: Tanya LaPerrière, Baroque violin; Elinor Frey, Baroque cello; Esteban La Rotta, theorbo, and Mylène Bélanger, harpsichord. The ensemble focuses on repertoire for violin, cello and continuo.

• Two genres are offered in this program: the sonata and the canzona from 17th century in Venice. Although they use the same instruments, belong to the same style, and sound quite similar, these two genres have very different origins and aesthetic purposes.

• Verso Venezia includes music written by Dario Castello, Giovanni Legrenzi and Tarquinio Merula — Venetian composers who were at the forefront of the transformation of the canzona into the sonata form.