Chouchane Siranossian – the guest of honour at the Festivals de Wallonie in 2019 –reunited with Leonardo García Alarcón in May 2020 to inaugurate this programme that is centred on Bach’s violin repertoire. The concert took place at the Opéra de Dijon after the first lockdown.
“These works are masterpieces of instrumental music, but are not that far removed from vocal music”
Chouchane Siranossian and Leonardo García Alarcón
In the first half of the 17th century, European composers were using instrumental music to experiment with sound and expression. They took inspiration from vocal rhetoric to create a new instrumental language that was characterised by increased virtuosity, invention, improvisation and a quest for unfamiliar and surprising sounds. The violin was the ideal instrument for this new repertoire, which sparked the creativity of musicians like Farina, Schmelzer, Biber, Pisendel and Bach. Their works emerged from the early baroque style of “stylus phantasticus”, breaking free from convention and custom in order to explore new expressive possibilities.
Chouchane Siranossian, Balázs Maté and Leonardo García Alarcón invite us to discover this groundbreaking repertoire.
Performance running time: 75 min
Chouchane Sinarossian, violin
Balázs Máté, cello and bass violin
Leonardo García Alarcón, German harpsichord and direction
