Lorenz Duftschmid (born 1964 in Linz, Austria) is an Austrian viol player and conductor. [1]
Born to a musical family, Duftschmid began studying music in an early age, and enjoyed the opportunity to learn from the great masters of the viol, such as Jordi Savall. He studied at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland.
Duftschmid is the director of the ensemble Armonico Tributo Austria, besides his solo career as a gamba player. He is also a member of Jordi Savall's ensembles Hesperion XX and La Capella Reial de Catalunya.
Duftschmid is an expert in the field of Baroque music, and excels in the performance of Renaissance and early Classical repertory as well.
Duftschmid owns and plays on the following viols:
Duftschmid took part in more than 70 recordings. To mention some of the prominent releases:
The viola da gamba, or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch of each of the strings. Although treble, tenor and bass were most commonly used, viols came in different sizes, including pardessus, treble, alto, small tenor, tenor, bass and contrabass. Separating these from other bowed string instruments such as the viola da braccio was the instruments' orientation; members of the older viol family were played with the neck oriented upwards, the rounded bottom downwards to settle on the lap or between the knees.
Marin Marais was a French composer and viol player. He studied composition with Jean-Baptiste Lully, often conducting his operas, and with master of the bass viol Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe for six months. In 1676 he was hired as a musician to the royal court of Versailles and was successful there, being appointed in 1679 as ordinaire de la chambre du roy pour la viole, a title he kept until 1725.
Jordi Savall i Bernadet is a Spanish conductor, composer and viol player. He has been one of the major figures in the field of Western early music since the 1970s, largely responsible for popularizing the viol family of instruments in contemporary performance and recording. As a historian of early music his repertoire features everything from medieval, Renaissance and Baroque through to the Classical and Romantic periods. He has incorporated non-western musical traditions in his work; including African vernacular music for a documentary on slavery.
Jean (?) de Sainte-Colombe (c. 1640 – c. 1700) was a French composer and violist. He was a celebrated master of the viola da gamba and was credited (by Jean Rousseau in his Traité de la viole (1687)) with adding the seventh string, tuned to the note AA (A1 in scientific pitch notation), on the bass viol.
Hille Perl is a German virtuoso performer of the viola da gamba and lirone.
Paolo Pandolfo is an Italian virtuoso player, composer, and teacher of music for the viola da gamba, born on January 31, 1964.
Vittorio Ghielmi is an Italian musician, conductor, composer. Compared by critics to Jasha Heifetz ("Diapason") for his virtuosity, and described as "An Alchemist of sound" for the intensity and versatility of his musical interpretations, Vittorio Ghielmi attracted notice while still very young for his new approach to the viola da gamba and to the sound of early music repertoire. His multifaceted training has made him an appreciated and creative musician as well as a sought-after conductor and coach for modern orchestras or orchestras with original instruments. He is Professor for viola da gamba and Head of the Department für Alte Musik at the Mozarteum Universität Salzburg and visiting professor at the Royal College of London. He is graduate at the Università Cattolica di Milano. He was born in Milan, Italy, where as a child he began his study of music with the violin, the double bass and later the viola da gamba and composition. In 1995 he was the winner of the "Concorso Internazionale Romano Romanini per strumenti ad arco" (Brescia). His fieldwork within old musical traditions surviving in forgotten parts of the world and bringing new perspectives to the interpretation of European "early music" led to him being presented the "Erwin Bodky Award" . He studied the viol with Roberto Gini, Wieland Kuijken and Christophe Coin (Paris). Associations with instrument maker, engineer and humanist Luc Breton (CH) as well as with many musicians of non-European traditions have been fundamental to his musical career, creating a deeper reflexion on the nature of sound used in early and modern European tradition . As viola da gamba soloist or conductor, he has appeared with many of the world's most famous orchestras in the fields of both classical and ancient music. He performs since youth recitals in duos with his brother Lorenzo Ghielmi and with the lutenist Luca Pianca, in the most important halls. As soloist or chamber musician, he has shared the stage with artists such as Gustav Leonhardt (duo), Cecilia Bartoli, Andràs Schiff, Thomas Quasthoff, Mario Brunello, Viktoria Mullova, Giuliano Carmignola, Christophe Coin, Reinhard Goebel, Giovanni Antonini, Ottavio Dantone, Enrico Bronzi etc. He is one of the few viola da gamba players regularly invited to appear as a soloist-conductor with orchestra. He has been invited to play in the world première of many new compositions, many of which have been dedicated to him . From 2007 to 2011 he was assistant to Riccardo Muti at the Salzburg festival. In 2007 he conceived with the Argentinian singer Graciela Gibelli and conducted a show, based on Buxtehude's "Membra Jesu Nostri", with the American film maker Marc Reshovsky (Hollywood) and the Swedish choir "Rilke Ensemble" (G.Eriksson); the project was produced by the Semana de musica religiosa de Cuenca (Madrid) and brought later to the Musikfest Stuttgart in 2010. Over three nights in 2009, he gave a performance of Forqueray's complete works for viola da gamba at De Bijloke, Ghent (B). He has been artist in residence at Musikfest Stuttgart 2010, the Segovia festival 2011, and the Bozar Bruxelles 2011. In 2012 he conducted Handel's Water music at the Portogruaro Festival (Venice) with a spectacle on the river Lemene conceived by Monique Arnaud. In 2018 he conducted the Opera Pygmalion by Rameau at the Drottningholms Slottsteater (Stockholm), with the régie of Saburo Teshigawara.; the new conception of this spectacle was so described in the Financial Times : "In their new production for Drottningholm Slottsteater, the Japanese dancer and choreographer Saburo Teshigawaraand Italian conductor and viola da gamba player Vittorio Ghielmi create a genuine masterpiece which combines exquisite music-making with experimental dance and modern lighting effects with the theatre’s unique 18th-century stage technology. Indeed, it is some time since the theatre has been so marvellously and innovatively put to use.“
Sophie Watillon was a Belgian viol player who specialized in Baroque music. She was born in Namur, Belgium to a musical family. During her youth, the viola da gamba-soloist gained international fame with refined and sensitive solo interpretations of early music and baroque compositions for viola da gamba.
The Ensemble À Deux Violes Esgales, stylized on their website as A 2 Violes Esgales, was formed in 1984 by the gambists Sylvia Abramowicz and Jonathan Dunford. The group has recorded a dozen albums mostly for Accord, Universal Music France. Based in Paris they tour the world with varied programs from recitals to a larger group with singers.
Tous les matins du monde is a 1991 French film based on the book of the same name by Pascal Quignard. Set during the reign of Louis XIV, the film shows the musician Marin Marais looking back on his young life when he was briefly a pupil of Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, and features much music of the period, especially that for the viola da gamba. The title of the film comes from words of the narrator in Quignard's novel.
Lee Santana is an American lutenist and composer, resident in Bremen, Germany.
August Wenzinger (1905–1996) was a prominent cellist, viol player, conductor, teacher, and music scholar from Basel, Switzerland. He was a pioneer of historically informed performance, both as a master of the viola da gamba and as a conductor of Baroque orchestral music and operas.
Michel Bernstein was a French musical producer and founder of several record labels.
Rolf Lislevand, is a Norwegian performer of Early music specialising on lute, vihuela, baroque guitar and theorbo.
Juan de Urrede or Juan de Urreda was a Flemish singer and composer active in Spain in the service of the Duke of Alba and King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. He was born Johannes de Wreede in Bruges.
Alison Crum, is an English viol player.
The Sonata in G major for two flutes and basso continuo, BWV 1039, is a trio sonata by Johann Sebastian Bach. It is a version, for a different instrumentation, of the Gamba Sonata, BWV 1027. The first, second and fourth movement of these sonatas also exist as a trio sonata for organ.
Imke David is a German viol player, author, Professor and Ensemble-Member.
Norbert Zeilberger was an Austrian organist, harpsichordist and pianist.
Siegfried Pank is a German cellist and viol player. He was a member of the Gewandhausorchester in Leipzig from 1962 to 1980, and toured with the Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum. He turned to playing the viol in historically informed performance, and lectured cello and viol at the Musikhochschule Leipzig from 1984, as professor from 1988 to 2001. He was a co-founder of the International Telemann Association in 1991, serving as its president from 2012.