Italian by birth, Bartolotti was employed as a musician at the enlightened court of Queen Christina of Sweden and in the opulent splendour of the Sun King’s Versailles. His elegant suites for guitar and theorbo fuse contemplation and virtuosity, distilling the melancholic beauty of the French Baroque. Largely neglected in modern times, this cosmopolitan composer’s music nonetheless occupies a seminal place in the early guitar repertory, and Gordon Ferries is an ideal exponent.