Concert:
Saturday 30 July, 20:30, Teatro Foce

THE ANGELS’ CELLO

With eyes upturned, while wandering silently through a church or among a crowd of museum visitors, surely it’s happened that your eye and attention has been caught by the musicians. Angels or courtiers, nobles or saints, they are there represented through the eyes and talented hand of the artist.  Every detail is an aesthetic revelation! The way of holding the instrument, the colors of the strings, the position of the hands and the body:  the angel gives a centuries-old music lesson.  Then why not try to reproduce that which is being taught?
Wieland Kuijken is one of the greatest interpreters of both viola da gamba and baroque cello; he has taught viola da gamba at the Conservatories of Brussels, the  Hague, Anversa, L’Aia, Innsbruck (since 1973), and is regularly on the juries of international competitions.  He has been a member of Alariusensemble, but also Ensemble Musique Nouvelle to promote the spread of avant- garde music. He has taken part in La Petite Bande, in the Kuijken Early Music Group and in the Kuijken String Quartette, along with his brothers Sigiswald and Barthold; and has recorded ancient music with Gustav Leonhardt, Frans Bruggen and Alfred Deller. Wieland Kuijken has the rare ability to be a profoundly competent interpreter of both viola da gamba and baroque cello, and is able to illustrate what happened when between the l6th and l7th century the players of viola da gamba became interested in the new instrument of the violin family: the bass violin (or cello), which was played, like the bass viol (viola da gamba), held between the legs! 
Holding the bow as for the viola da gamba, Wieland Kuijken, in a world premiére, will interpret three Suites of J.S. Bach (composed ca. 1720) as has been revealed in the iconography of the period. The new instrument, the cello, was not initially welcomed alongside the viola da gamba, as reported by Hubert Le Blanc in “Defense de la basse de viole contre les enterprises du violon et les pretentions du violoncel”, published in Amsterdam in 1740. Often our angel musicians are shown playing the cello “alla gamba”, revealing that the modern bow hold with the palm of the right hand downward was yet to be experimented.

PROGRAM

Johann Sebastian Bach
Three Suites for Violoncello solo

Suite n. 1 in sol maggiore, BWV 1007
Prelude.
Allemande.
Courante.
Sarabande.
Menuet I/II.
Gigue.

Suite n. 2 in re minore, BWV 1008
Prelude.
Allemande.
Courante.
Sarabande.
Menuet I/II.
Gigue.

Suite n. 5 in do minore, BWV 1011
Prelude and Fugue.
Allemande.
Courante.
Sarabande.
Gavotte I/II.
Gigue.

Wieland Kuijken, baroque cello and “alla gamba” bow

LINKS

http://www.agendalugano.ch/estivalugano/programma/musica/wieland-kuijken
http://www.longlake.ch/index.php/site/detail/id/151