This is a short set of harpsichord pieces I arranged for guitar, taken from a larger suite composed by Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre.
 
De la Guerre was a French baroque composer and harpsichordist born into a wealthy family of masons, musicians and instrument makers — one of the very few well-known female composers of the time, given that female musicians in the 17th century were, for the most part, barred from public performances and other professional opportunities that were reserved for men. Despite the success de la Guerre achieved in her lifetime, her music largely remains unplayed today.
 
In my initial experimentation with playing these pieces on classical guitar, I was immediately struck by how well the music translated from the original manuscript onto the instrument. It’s pretty common to include a work of baroque music on a classical guitar recital (which usually means any one of a number of works by JS Bach) — especially when the rest of the program features mostly newer, contemporary works. However, arranging and playing these pieces feels very refreshing and new despite the antiquity of the music itself, and I hope to arrange and perform more of de la Guerre’s harpsichord works in the future as I definitely think they deserve more attention!