The Levée is an early music ensemble formed to bring forgotten music back to life and to explore new stories of music history. They want to interrogate why some music had a continuous performing tradition, and why other music remained untouched. They find that relatively unknown music presents exciting challenges to modern historical performance practice and understanding of music history.

The ensemble takes its name from a painting and engraving of the same title from William Hogarth’s series A Rake’s Progress (1732-5). The Levée depicts the protagonist (Tom Rakeford) indulging in sport and artistic luxuries; present at Rakeford’s levée (morning ceremony) is a harpsichordist thought to represent Handel or Porpora and a dancing master holding a small violin.

The instrumentalists Marguerite Wassermann (violin), Martin Jantzen (viola da gamba), Niels Pfeffer (theorbo), and Josef Laming (harpsichord) studied together in Basel, Switzerland.