The Pleasure Garden (CH)

13.5.2026

The Pleasure Garden, founded in 2026, is an international early music ensemble established with the aim of exploring the English repertoire of the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. Its first programme, The English Garden: Music from Dowland to Purcell, brings together the art of the courts, salons and gardens of seventeenth-century England: from the melancholic ayres of John Dowland and their virtuosic instrumental echoes to the fantasies, suites, dances and sonatas of John Jenkins, Matthew Locke, John Playford and Henry Purcell. The ensemble builds upon historically informed performing practice and the diverse sound palette of recorders, lute and viola da gamba.

FOCUS

• Historically informed performing practice (HIPP)

• English music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods

• repertoire ranging from Dowland to Purcell

• chamber music for recorders, lute and viola da gamba

• the interweaving of courtly, salon and dance music traditions