There are times when an all-star cast gets stuck in a hopeless screenplay on the silver screen. But we predict that sparks will fly at this on-stage encounter: Sophie Gent, Jean Rondeau, Thomas Dunford and Myriam Rignol are coming together in the spotlights with spectacular Baroque repertoire by the supremely virtuoso Kapsberger, Froberger and Biber. The latter has gone down in history as the best violinist of his age. But he was also a composer, as the illustrious globetrotter Charles Burney confirmed, noting in his diary that “Biber’s sonatas are the most difficult and most fanciful of any music I have seen.” Even today, these pieces with their fragments of polyphony, brilliant passage work and exuberant finales are considered the apogee of violin music. Kapsberger was Biber’s equivalent on plucked strings. He played the lute and theorbo everywhere from the most opulent palaces to the most sacred papal residences, attracting an imposing host of fans. His toccatas full of syncopation, ornamentation, contrasts and asymmetries courageously buck the trend. Last but not least, Frescobaldi’s follower Johann Jakob Froberger was famed for his keyboard work. The Viennese court organist was the most important keyboard composer north of the Alps in the mid-17th century, taking the stylus fantasticus to sparkling heights with a blend of imitative and improvisatory fragments, rhythmic eccentricity and extreme chromaticism.
Program
H.I.F. von Biber: Violin Sonata no. 2, 5, 6 | G.G. Kapsberger: Toccata no. 2, 4 | J.J. Froberger: Toccata no. 2, 6 | Méditation sur ma Mort Future
Performers
Sophie Gent, violin | Myriam Rignol, viol | Thomas Dunford, theorbo | Jean Rondeau, harpsichord