Fantasticus stands for intense expression and emotional extravagance. The Netherlands-based baroque ensemble’s playing is directly informed by the stylus fantasticus, a concept coined in 1650 by Athanasius Kircher, the German Jesuit scholar, alchemist and polymath, to describe ‘the most free and unrestrained method of composing’.

Each of the works in its programme defies the boundaries of convention, none more so than Marin Marais’s elegiac Tombeau pour Monsieur de Lully.