Active for some time in the continuo and small ensemble fields, French lutenist and baroque guitarist Albane Imbs can’t seem to shake off her collaborative zeal even for her debut solo album. Here, former mentor Rolf Lislevand joins her for a number of duets featuring the tiorba (theorbo) and tiorbino, a curious mini-me instrument sounding an octave higher than the theorbo and invented by the Italian composer, poet and lutenist Bellerofonte Castaldi (1581-1649).

These duets, from Castaldi’s 1622 collection Capricci a due stromenti cioè tiorba e tiorbino, are sprinkled throughout Imbs’s recital. She contrasts these with solo works by Castaldi, performed on the dark-hued theorbo and the lighter baroque guitar – another lovely contrast. Take, for example, the dramatic, at times contrapuntal Capricetto galante and the bright, improvisatory Arpeggiata a mio modo that follows it, both of which Imbs imbues with the same luxuriant spontaneity her playing exhibits throughout.

Although of a later generation than Castaldi, Italian composer and guitarist Domenico Pellegrini (c1617-after 1682) shared with the earlier musician a penchant for dance forms (hardly uncommon, of course); however, what the freer capriccio was for Castaldi, the toccata may have been for Pellegrini. We have a couple of choice examples here, Imbs relishing their extravagant arpeggiation and ornamentation, foils to the leaner percussive strumming and crisp divisions of dances such as Pellegrini’s Balleto primo and Corrente detta la Grimalda.

An impressive solo debut, then, featuring the music of two fascinating composers who, each in his own way, inhabited that transitional space between the Renaissance and the Baroque.