Ensemble photography by Tatiana Daubek (above), Paula Lobo, and Teju Cole
Welcome to our 2022–2023 Season
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Tuesday, September 27, 2022, 7PM
Jude Ziliak Plays Johann Paul von Westhoff The Six Solo Violin Sonatas (pub. Dresden, 1694) St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University 1160 Amsterdam Ave New York, NY 10027 Join Jude Ziliak for an evening of music for solo violin from German-speaking lands in the 17th century. The program opens with experimental music from the 1610s (the earliest days of the violin's life as a solo instrument) with repertoire preserved in a manuscript found in Wroclaw (formerly Breslau), Breslau ms. 114. This manuscript of mostly anonymous music from the first decades of the 17th century is an amazing record of a largely unwritten improvisational practice of polyphonic violin playing in Germany, decades before Biber and a century before Bach. Looking ahead to the end of the century, we will turn to the ambitious suites of Johann Paul von Westhoff. The program will conclude with Biber's meditative Passacaglia from the Mystery Sonatas. Join either in person or via YouTube livestream. |
photo by Tatiana Daubek
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Highlights from our Tenth Anniversary Season
Highlights from our Tenth Anniversary Season
Sonnambula's first CD, "Leonora Duarte (1610–1678): The Complete Works," was released on JUNE 7 (2019; Centaur Records). The first complete recording of Duarte's seven Sinfonias (rec. 2016), and the first record for us, it's a tremendous honor to bring the works to life. The disc features a spoken essay by Teju Cole and is artfully mastered by Marlan Barry. Here is a preview track:
Image © The New Yorker. Illustration by Cristiana Couceiro.
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Alex Ross's beautiful meditation on our Duarte concert with Teju Cole at The Cloisters — from the February 18/25, 2019 issue of The New Yorker: "The absence of historical celebrities hardly hurt attendance... It’s tempting to describe the Sinfonias as jewel-like in construction. You could also compare them to Vermeer’s paintings, small in scale and infinite in depth... For a remarkable hour on a cold February night, their world came alive again." |
Photos of Sonnambula at The Cloisters are by Paula Lobo for The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Sonnambula performs rare old music written for the viola da gamba (viol) and similar instruments.
Those of us who grew up playing music are likely more familiar with what music historians call "violin family" instruments—violins, violas, and cellos—in a modern setup, with innovations that have evolved over the last two hundred years to fill modern concert halls with sound: steel strings, end pins, chin rests, and modern bows.
Viols possess none of these artifacts of industrialization. Their delicate bodies are made with thin slabs of wood, strung with gut strings and frets, and are played da gamba, or 'on the leg'. In short, these instruments are meant for the court, for the domestic interior, and for the cultivation of a quiet beauty, the sort of which is difficult to come by in today's loud and fast-paced world.
2017–2018 highlights
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Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (1665–1729): Musician in Paris |
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Divertimento in D Maj; K 136
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Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 49 in F Minor; Hob 1:49
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Live at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Audience looks on at The Hispanic Society of America, New York City
