Festival artistic direction
Dimos Goudaroulis
Three hundred years ago, in 1723, Johann Sebastian Bach closes the Köthen period and leaves for Leipzig, where he remained until the end of his life. During the almost seven years he stayed in Köthen (1717-1723) as Kapellmeister at the court of music-lover Prince Leopold, Bach was at his most creative age and had excellent musicians at his disposal. There, he wrote some of his most important works of instrumental and chamber music, such as the
Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, the
Sonatas for violin and harpsichord, the
Suites for violoncello solo, possibly the
Sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord, the Preludes and Fugues of
The Well-Tempered Clavier collection and the
Brandenburg Concertos.
In 1723 dies Dimitrie Cantemir, Moldavian politician, scholar, highly educated and polyglot intellectual, writer, historian and important composer of Ottoman court music. Cantemir spent long periods of his life in Istanbul, where not only he composed works that still hold a prominent place in the classical repertoire of Ottoman music, but also collected and recorded hundreds of pieces from the oral music tradition of his time, in a musical notation invented by himself. Cantemir’s multifaceted personality inspires a dialogue between the music of the Ottoman court of the 17
th century and the court music of Baroque Europe.
In 1723 the virtuoso violinist and composer Giuseppe Tartini together with his close friend and colleague in Padua, cellist Antonio Vandini, leave Italy and go to Prague, where they would work during three years in the service of Count Kinsky. The two musicians will remain friends and collaborators throughout their lives. Tartini wrote for Vandini two demanding Concertos for cello. Vandini’s few surviving cello and basso continuo sonatas, recently rediscovered, are particularly expressive and virtuosic.
In 1723 Carl Friedrich Abel, composer and perhaps the last and most important viola da gamba player of his time, is born in Köthen. His father, Christian Ferdinand Abel, was the principal gambist and cellist of Prince Leopold’s orchestra at the court of Köthen and a good friend of J. S. Bach. Carl Friedrich Abel would later study in Leipzig with Bach and become a very close friend and collaborator of Johann Christian Bach in London, where together they would establish the famous Bach-Abel concert series.
With these four short musical stories, we welcome you to the 6
th Baroque Music Festival and invite you to a supersonic journey through time!
Friday 3rd November - 1st concert:
Double ensemble (East - West) with period instruments
Saturday 4th November - 2nd concert
La Stravaganza Greca
Friday 10th November - 3rd concert:
Lucile Boulanger & Pierre Gallon
Sunday 12th November - 4th concert:
Dimos Goudaroulis & Bruno Procopio