Musical stories and narrative music
Can music express ideas and tell a story? And can a speaker learn from a composer about how to influence? This was thought to be the case at least in the Baroque period. This evening’s music takes us to the Court of Versailles, led by the Madrid-based ensemble El Gran Teatro del Mundo. The programme also includes works by the great baroque masters Bach and Couperin. Speech teacher Juhana Torkki will open up the rhetorical worlds of the compositions amidst the music.
The concert lasts approx. 90 min. The event is in Finnish.
El Gran Teatro del Mundo
Miriam Jorde – baroque oboe
Bruno Hurtado – viola da gamba
Julio Caballero – harpsichord
The ensemble El Gran Teatro del Mundo specializes in the performance of music from the 17th and 18th century.
Named after the baroque mystery play of the same name from 1655 by the spanish poet Pedro Calderón de la Barca, the idea of single protagonists as representatives of the existential human conditions in the theatrum mundi also represents the aesthetical concept of the ensemble: united under a common artistic ideal, the individuality and temperament of each member highlight the manifold affects of the music, creating a vibrant and dramatic performance where the rhetoric of each piece is emphasised.
El Gran Teatro del Mundo has performed all over Europe, amongst others at Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, Festtage Alter Musik Basel, Musikinstrumentenmuseum Berlin, Musica Antica Urbino, Festival d’Ambronay, Centro Botìn Santander or Riga Early Music Festival. The ensemble also was selected as one of the “Promising Young Ensembles” of the International Young Artist’s Presentation (IYAP) at the Laus Poliphoniae Festival in Antwerp and won the prize for the best interpretation of spanish music at the Antón García Abril Competition in Baza in 2017. In 2018 El Gran Teatro del Mundo was a beneficiary of the eeemerging project (Emerging European Ensembles) supporting young early music ensembles within the framework of the Creative Europe programme. In 2019 the ensemble won the “Cambridge Early Music Prize” at the Early Music Young Artists Competition in York (UK).
“Mortals play; this earthly ball let unfold, for there of all that is done, the scene must be.”