This CD contains a cross-section of William Young's work played by gambist Juliane Laake and her ensemble Art d'Echo. Taken from his only known sheet music print or from manuscripts from all over Europe, several of the recordings are world premieres.

Held in high esteem by emperors and kings, William Young was considered to be the most famous gambist of the 17th century. His contemporaries celebrated him as Orpheus reincarnate and, even decades after his death, he was considered one of the best gambists that Europe had ever seen. Despite his extensive, extraordinary, and stylistically extremely diverse oeuvre, few gambists were so quickly forgotten as William Young.

There is very little information to be found regarding Young's background. He was initially employed at the Archduke's Court in Innsbruck in 1652, but neither his year of birth nor any other facts of his earlier life are known. His compositions explored the different musical styles and trends of his time: a wonderfully unconventional and still largely unacknowledged field of experimentation, a musical world of its own that is difficult to classify within usual genres.