The Model

Flights of Fantasy With the Irish Baroque Orchestra Chamber Soloists

€15 (€13) / World renowned violinist Monica Huggett will be at the helm of a selected group of soloists from Irish Baroque Orchestra.

The English violinist and conductor, Monica Huggett, has an international reputation as one of the foremost baroque violinists of our time. In 2008 she was appointed director of the new graduate program in historical performance at the Juilliard School, New York. She has won Gramophone awards for her recordings of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin (1997) and Biber’s violin sonatas (2002).

“Our Flights of Fantasy explores the repertoire for three violins and the breath of creativity composers achieved with this combination. Three violins playing together harks back to folk traditions from before the baroque era. I have heard buskers playing 3 violin music on street corners in Scandinavia in the summer. The close harmony created by 3 treble instruments has the same sweet quality as a barbershop quartet. The largest repertoire comes from Italy in the 17th century, when the violin started to develop its own idiomatic style. All the Italian composers represented in this programme would have known the rich harmonic language of Monteverdi and in these littlle pieces we have all the drama and pathos of a mini opera. As Italian violinists continued their diaspora throughout Europe in the 17th century we see examples of the 3 violin repertoire turning up in Germany with the famous Canon and Gigue of Pachelbel and the triple concerto of his younger contemporary JS Bach. The Englishman Purcell found the combination suited his genius for composing ground bass pieces, and he left us a gem in the genre.” Monica Huggett

Concert will be followed by a ‘Meet the Artists’ wine reception.

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