Il Vero Violino - The True Violin
| When: | Tuesday, 22 March 2016 - Tuesday, 22 March 2016 |
| Where: | Braamfontein Campus East The Atrium, South West Engineering Building |
| Start time: | 19:00 |
| Enquiries: | Tel: 011 717 1376 |
| Cost: | Full price = R80.00; discount price = R55.00 (students, pensioners and Wits staff). |
Join violinist, Antoinette Lohmann and harpsichordist, John Reid Coulter for a rich and varied programme of works from the 17th and 18th century.
The title of the concert alludes to a time when the violin we know and love today was a very different instrument and while its origins are highly contested, we do know it evolved out of a three stringed instrument played by gypsies providing light merry “let’s dance” tunes . It was a lowly regarded musical instrument and it was not until the addition of the fourth string that endowed the violin with its extraordinary range that the violin was accepted as a classical instrument.
IL VERO VIOLINO (the true violin) implies that the music will be performed on a violin as it was in its original form. After the 18th century, violins were more often than not altered in a radical way thus changing the original design concept. The neck was literally cut off and reset at a steeper angle, the bridge was raised, the bass bar changed, a chin-rest added and the shape, length and weight of the bow was changed.
Although these changes were gradual they were implemented primarily to meet the demands for greater volume production. However gut strings were used well into WW II. This means that the highly prized instruments of Stradivarius and Amati, two famous pre-19th century violin makers, exist today in an altered form quite different from the originals!
Antoinette has visited South Africa many times and teaches at the Early Music Department of the Utrecht Conservatory in the Netherlands. John completed his harpsichord studies at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and has taught at a number of South African universities and is in much demand as a continuo player and accompanist.
Their programme explores some of the lesser known gems of the golden age of the true violin by Marco Uccellini, Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli, Johann Jacob Walther, Jacobus Nozeman, Jean-Marie Leclair and Johann Sebastian Bach. Some solo harpsichord works by Johann Jacob Froberger will be included as 2016 marks the 400th anniversary Froberger's birth.
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