This recording completes a project begun almost twenty years ago: violist Lucile Boulanger and her ensemble Les Lucioles pick up where Sophie Watillon’s landmark first volume left off, recording the second half of Christopher Simpson’s The Monthes (July through December) and the two remaining Seasons (Summer and Autumn). Simpson (c. 1602–1669), the great English virtuoso and theorist of “division” playing — melodic ornamentation and improvisation over a given line — pushed the viola da gamba to a level of virtuosity his contemporaries considered almost superhuman, and these late, technically formidable cycles represent that art at its peak.

Les Lucioles perform on a consort of viols built or modeled after 17th-century instruments, deliberately favoring a treble viol over a violin to preserve the blend Simpson himself recommended, and pairing it with an English chamber organ designed specifically for viol accompaniment. The album restores the historical ornamentation — slurs, rises, back-falls, double relishes — described in Simpson’s own treatise, aiming for a spontaneous, historically grounded reading rather than a polished modern gloss. Recorded at Stichting Westvest in the Netherlands under longtime collaborator Aline Blondiau, it’s both a heartfelt tribute to Watillon and a virtuosic close to a two-decade musical journey.

Les Lucioles
Lucile Boulanger – treble & bass viol
Myriam Rignol – bass viol
Manon Papasergio – bass viol
Gabriel Rignol – lute
Elisabeth Geiger – keyboards