The baroque group that Marcel Ponseele has led since 1988 arrives in Oviedo with the aim of discovering to the public the music of the Dresden court in the 18th century, with works by Vivaldi, Hasse and other more unknown authors such as Zelenka, Heinichen or Pisendel.
Awarded with the prestigious “Diapason D’Or” award, it is the first time that the Belgian group has performed in Oviedo. Its members are on tour in Spain, the first they have done abroad in a year in which concert halls are still closed in Belgium. They have, however, had an intense activity in “streaming” thanks to the support of the Flemish Parliament, according to what flutist Jan de Winne tells LA NUEVA ESPAÑA. “The most important thing was to stay active, so in the fall we started recording, first with a small number of musicians, because we had to leave three meters apart; It was very difficult to listen to us in those conditions ”, he highlights.
The initiative to develop a music program around the Dresden court came to “Il Gardellino” from the National Center for Musical Diffusion. “It is fantastic music that is sometimes difficult to perform in a concert because the programmers fear that it may not be well received by the public.” De Winne explains that perhaps the public is more familiar with the courts of Berlin or Mannheim, but insists on the significance of Dresden, which featured “the first professional orchestra of its time, with King Frederick August I” the Strong “, which he had a huge interest in attracting the best musicians of the moment ”. He gives as an example Johan Georg Pisendel, for whom Vivaldi wrote several works.
“Il Gardellino” is committed to researching, recovering and recording music and musicians unknown to the general public. It is its own members who direct these investigations and who go to the archives in search of those lost “musical jewels”. “Many times it takes time to search for works of music, but in the case of the Dresden court we are fortunate because the entire library has recently been digitized, which greatly shortens the working time”, details De Winne. The Belgian group has been developing this project on the Dresden court for more than ten years and has resulted in two internationally awarded albums.
In addition to editing music to convert archival manuscripts into modern scores, much more accessible to current musicians, both Marcel Ponseele and Jan de Winne have done extensive work in the construction of wind instruments that follow the preserved models of the century XVIII.
“We build our own instruments, the oboes and the flutes. I have managed to get myself an original collection of vintage instruments that I am afraid to deteriorate and that is why I play with the copies I have made, ”explains De Winne. At first, he felt some frustration when copies and originals didn’t deliver similar sound results, “but the most important thing is to play honestly. The interest is not in imitating how music sounded in the 18th century “, and he points out that” we want to get closer to ‘the truth’ in musical interpretation, but we know that it will never be an absolute truth “.
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