My summer 2014 beautifully ended just a few days ago with the closing of the world biggest early music Festival, the Utrecht Oude Muziek Festival and the great news from them that my group Fons Harmonicus was chosen for the Fringe Public Prize 2014.

Herewith, I would like to record the memory with some nice pictures from the festivals I participated this summer in Utrecht and Brugge.

These were such exciting days, meeting with early music stars, up and coming ensembles and many early music friends from all over the europe just every corner of the city (literally!).

The highlight must have been the Fabulous Fringe with Seconda Pratica, having just completed our residency in Ambronay 2014, on 31st August at the newly reopened Tivoli Vredenburg.

The Grotezaal where we performed kept its amazing acoustic and warm atmosphere with wooden materials after 7 long years reconstruction. (Well, actually when I came to this country, they had already started reconstruction, so I hadn’t known how amazing it was. But many of my colleagues assumed it was finely kept after the reconstruction against their worries).

Grotezaal of Tivoli Vredenburg

Our program ‘Nova Europa’ was received nicely by the ‘Uitverkocht (sold-out = full-house)’ audiences and Next morning, we were surprised with good review on the first page of daily issue by the festival! > go to the link!

Trace back to the beginning of August, my fringe tour started in Brugge with my ensemble Fons Harmonicus.

We were honored to be invited to the fringe concert at MA festival Brugge 2014, one of the oldest early music festival, and performed on 8th August at Provinciaal Hof.

Even as a young ensemble, we are not immune from financial pressures, and needed to go through some struggle about financial issue before we decide to come, honestly. Especially in mid of summer, travel cost is suffering.

However, we got strong and kind financial support from Leeds Baroque Friends and Ms. van Lingen which made us possible to travel to this beautiful old city. I would like to thank them again here from bottom of my heart!

 The faces of audiences captured by Arne Kelders/MA Festival tell enough what a wonderful time we had during the concert.

Fons Harmonicus appeared on the Fringe concert of Utrecht Early Music Festival as well.

In this enormous festival, with hundreds of performances at all hours of the day, musicians always never know which kind of venue you get. It could be a cafe, could be a movie theater, could be a museum  and could be an observatory!

We performed on 1st September at Sonnenborgh (Zonnenburg), the observatory on a small green hill in the very quiet area of Utrecht. The concert was held in the old and impressive courtyard, built on a part of the 16th century bastion.

Luckily, we had a beautiful blue sky above us the whole time during our concert. It was beautiful to see the colorful sunbeams through the glass-roof which changes the expression of shadow and light all the time. It seemed like to be linked with the contrasting and dramatic 17th century music we performed (Rognoni, Schmelzer, Stradella, Biber and Lonati from the program ‘Il Vento da Transalpina’) and reminded us of the essential ‘baroque’ concept, contrast of human expression and chiaroscuro.

I remember still, now, after a week how we were inspired by the venue and also from enthusiastic ‘early birds’ audiences who came for this Monday morning concert on the first day of the month (!). It was an unforgettable experience, a kind of groove and many special moments we shared during our performance.

And it was proved by the news as I wrote above, that we were chosen for the Fringe Public Prize thanks to all the votes the audiences made for us. The prize promised us our appearance in Fabulous Fringe concert in next edition of Utrecht Oude Muziek Festival.

I should not forget to mention about one more up-and-coming ensemble, the Amsterdam Corelli Collective, formed by students of Amsterdam Conservatory, with whom I could share great time in both Fringes concerts in Brugge and Utrecht.

Amsterdam Corelli Collective at Herz in TivoliVredenburg

My beautiful summer is ended and many new exciting projects with Seconda Pratica, Fons Harmonicus and Amsterdam Corelli Collective is waiting  in the coming months and we are already moving on to the new endeavors…

Trio Nocturno is going to offer you a joyful afternoon on coming Friday!

Lunch Time Concert on Friday, 15th February, 12:30-13:00

at Sweelinkzaal, Conservatorium van Amsterdam.  ( Free of charge!)

We are preparing Trio from our beloved composer, Luigi Boccherini!

     Trio for two violins and violoncello op.6 (ca.1771, Madrid)

     No.2 Cmajor, No.3 gminor.

L.Boccherini is eminent cello master, born in Lucca in 1743, Italy and died in Madrid, Spain in 1805.

Compared to his quintet with two violoncelli or cello concerti, those trio works  for 2vns and vc are hardly performed..

However! He actually published 5 sets of music for this trio setting (op.1,4,6,34 and 54) and all of them has amazing variety of colors and astonishing sonority as same as quintet or orchestral works!

Op.6 was written after he came to Madrid, so you can hear the influence of  Spanish sound both in rhythm and harmony.

We found the Manuscript by himself and 4 different facsimiles..

Manuscript might be written around 1769, soon after he came to Madrid.

So first publication was in Madrid on 1771.

Probably the same year from Paris, Venier who already published his symphonies and trio op.4 as well. However, in this Paris edition, we found so many discrepancies from his manuscript. Many decision for slurs and dynamics were moderate in this edition. And top of it, some bars of sequence motions (which is Boccherini’s trademark we could say) were just eliminated!

We are not sure if this modification have been done by Boccherini himslef or at least under his control or all by someone else.

Manuscript of Op.6 No.2 1st page

The other 2 editions, one in Venice and one in London. Those are pirates edition so to say..Venice from Madrid, London from Paris.

Hence, this time we use his Madrid edition with reference of  the Manuscript and try to come close to his original idea.

We are looking forward to see many of you there on Friday!

Il Tempo dell’Affetto, een pas opgericht kamermuziekensemble, combineert traverso /blokfluit, barokviool, barokfagot en klavecimbel tot eindeloos diverse klankkleuren om zo steeds een nieuw licht te werpen op het repertoire uit de 17^de en 18^de eeuw.

De naam van de groep is afgeleid van “Lamento della Ninfa”, het belangrijkste meesterwerk van Monteverdi. Voor dit madrigaal schrijft de componist “al tempo dell’affetto, dell’animo, e non a quello della mano” voor. Het stuk moet worden uitgevoerd in “een tempo dat ontroert en bezielt, niet in het tempo vast ligt”. Deze sterke (tempo)aanduiding had grote gevolgen voor de nieuwe muziekstijl van deze periode. Niet langer werd strikt vastgehouden aan de vorm en gewoonte, maar werd het menselijk gevoel gevolgd. Het doel van Il Tempo dell’Affetto is om het publiek aan te spreken met de energie, passie en eerlijkheid van duidelijke en heldere interpretaties van authentiek repertoire.

Opmerkingen en vragen?:  via iltempodellaffetto@gmail.com

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