Les Sacqueboutiers are a veteran presence on the French early music scene, having accompanied many top vocal groups specializing in the early Baroque as well as issuing several releases under their own name -- which refers to the sacquebout, inelegantly translated into English as sackbut or, more inelegantly still, sagbutt. (The Italian word "trombone," in fact, originally meant sackbut.) They play other early brass instruments besides the sackbut, here including the cornett and early trumpet. The Ludi Musici of
Samuel Scheidt, composed in 1620, is right up their alley; here they perform 17 of the 32 short dances and canzonas included in that set of light music intended for the establishment of the Archbishop of Magdeburg.