The Quatuor Ébène timed this round-the-world Beethoven cycle to coincide with Beethoven's 250th birthday in 2020, beginning a worldwide tour and fortunately completing it before the outbreak of the pandemic in that year. The cycle was recorded in Philadelphia, Vienna, Tokyo, São Paolo, Melbourne, Nairobi, and finally Paris. CD buyers get a combination of travelogue and set of work descriptions, but it's not clear that the performances were influenced in any way by the globetrotting. This is, however, a very strong Beethoven set, with full-blooded performances perhaps unexpected from a group that made its name with French quartet music.

The work group formed by Telemanns overture suites is regarded as exemplary and even today offers a wealth of discoveries and the three works presented here in album recording premieres certainly answer this description. It is difficult to determine the chronological order of Telemanns extant overture suites because the composer incorporated very different influences into them, not only from French music since the invention of the form by Jean-Baptiste Lully but also from the Lullists active in Germany such as Johann Sigismund Kusser, Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, and Johann Fischer.

French composer Charles Dieupart spent most of his active life in London, where he became famous as the founder of the Opera Season of the Queen Theatre of Haymarket. He was much sought after as a harpsichord teacher, and no wonder his most famous work was the “Six Suittes de Clavessin” (original spelling), a highly original work which formed the bridge between the flourishing French style and the contrapuntal German style of keyboard writing. Also the great Johann Sebastian Bach was influenced by this work, as traces can be found in his English Suites As a PhD in Historical Musicology Portuguese harpsichordist Fernando Jaloto did extensive research into Dieupart’s work, and the performance practice of its time.