Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 11 hours ago
This set of fourteen preludes occurs at the beginning of Nicolas Vallet's large work "Le Secret des Muses," published in 1615. Given that they occur as a group, they seem to be stand-alone pieces. Perhaps they were intended as pedagogical studies, but I can imagine that they were also performed at social gatherings, like dinner parties, and as introductions to chamber music performances that combined the lute with other instruments like recorders and violins or members of the viola da gamba family. It is with that possibility in mind that I have chosen the artwork to illustrate these recordings.
This set of fourteen preludes occurs at the beginning of Nicolas Vallet's large work "Le Secret des Muses," published in 1615. Given that they occur as a group, they seem to be stand-alone pieces. Perhaps they were intended as pedagogical studies, but I can imagine that they were also performed at social gatherings, like dinner parties, and as introductions to chamber music performances that combined the lute with other instruments like recorders and violins or members of the viola da gamba family. It is with that possibility in mind that I have chosen the artwork to illustrate these recordings.
