Cristina ESCLAPEZ (Spain) pursued her graduate studies in piano performance with Ramón Muñoz in Murcia and Patricia Montero in Brussels, in the course of which she played the complete solo keyboard works of Haydn and Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. She subsequently decided to focus on her true passion, which is chamber music. She performs regularly with musicians such as Lorenzo Coppola and Vicens Prats, who have had a decisive influence on her career. She also shares her passion for chamber music with her students, with whom she partners in Barcelona and around the world, deeply convinced of the importance of this role, which calls for the combined talents of a music coach, confidante, advocate, ally, and improviser.
Josep DOMÈNECH (Spain) teaches historical oboe at the Amsterdam Conservatory (where he succeeded his teacher, Alfredo Bernardini) and at the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen. Josep is fascinated by period performance practice in a repertoire ranging from J. S. Bach to Gustav Mahler. He regularly performs with some of the best period orchestras, including the Bach Collegium Japan, Il Giardino Armonico, the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble, the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, The English Baroque Soloists, and The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and he plays first oboe in the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, led by Philippe Herreweghe. He frequently gives master classes and lectures at festivals and conservatories throughout Europe. He also collaborates with Pau Orriols, maker of period oboes.
Lorenzo COPPOLA (Italy) studied period clarinet with Eric Hoeprich. He performs regularly with the Freiburger Barockorchester, Les Arts Florissants, La Petite Bande, and La Grande Écurie. He shares his love of chamber music with artists such as Andreas Staier, Isabelle Faust, Alexander Melnikov, the Zefiro Ensemble, the Kuijken Quartet, and he enjoys a special rapport with his colleagues from the Ensemble Dialoghi. He has recorded the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the Freiburger Barockorchester, the Mozart Clarinet Quintet with the Kuijken Quartet, and the Brahms Clarinet Sonatas with Andreas Staier. Very keen on conveying the full expressive range of the score, he loves to decode the musical vocabulary of each era and sharing it with audiences and his students. He teaches period clarinet at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya in Barcelona.
Bart AERBEYDT (Belgium) plays regularly with period-instruments ensembles such Freiburger Barockorchester. He can also be heard with the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Collegium Vocale Gand, Concerto Kœln. He has performed as soloist in concertos by Mozart, Telemann, Handel, and Graun. After studying modern horn in Gent and Antwerp conservatories with Luc Bergé and Rik Vercruysse, he studied natural horn at Amsterdam Conservatory with Teunis van der Zwart. He can be heard in many recordings, as the Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos with Freiburger Barockorchester, of which Fanfare Magazine wrote the following : “in the new version the horn players are Bart Aerbeydt and Gijs Lauceulle, two of the best reasons to like this set”.
Javier ZAFRA (Spain) has been principal bassoon of the Freiburger Barockorchester for twenty years. He studied in The Hague with Donna Agrell and was part of the European Union Baroque Orchestra under the direction of Ton Koopman. He also performs with several other European and Japanese orchestras. In chamber-music repertoire, he regularly partners with Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov, among others. He has performed the Mozart Bassoon Concerto on many occasions, notably at Wigmore Hall in London and at Lincoln Center in New York, where his performance was lauded by a reviewer fromThe New York Times. Inquisitive by nature, he tirelessly explores the timbre properties of historical bassoons and loves to share his discoveries with audiences and his longtime performing partners. He teaches Baroque bassoon at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg im Breisgau.
Kristin von DER GOLTZ (Germany/Norway), cellist, studied with Christoph Henkel in Freiburg and with William Pleeth in London, where she became a member of the New Philharmonia London under the then principal conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli. She was a member of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra from 1991 to 2004. In 2006 she became a member of the Berlin Baroque Soloists, an ensemble of the Berlin Philharmonic. She is a regular guest at the Barokkanerne Norwegian Baroque as artistic director. From 2002 to 2009 she taught Baroque Cello at the College of Music in Munich. In the summer of 2015 she released her latest CD with sonatas by Andrea Caporale and Johann Ernst Galliard. Today Kristin von der Goltz is Professor of Baroque Cello at Frankfurt and also works at the College of Music and Theatre in Munich.
In a letter addressed to his father Leopold, Mozart wrote on April 10th, 1784: “I have written two grand concertos, and also a quintet […] which was received with extraordinary applause. I consider it myself to be the best thing I ever wrote in my life. How I wish you could have heard it; and how beautifully it was executed!” The quintets of Mozart and Beethoven are true little jewels of the chamber music repertoire, engaging the audience with a variety of emotions: opera-like dialogues and improvisation, drama and humor… An experience made of contrasts!
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Quintet for Fortepiano, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn and Bassoon in E-flat major, K. 452 (1784)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Quintet for Fortepiano, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn and Bassoon in E-flat major, Op. 16 (1797)
Cristina Esclapez, Fortepiano
Josep Domènech, Oboe
Lorenzo Coppola, Clarinet
Bart Aerbeydt, Horn
Javier Zafra, Bassoon
BRAHMS: A FOOT IN GERMAN ROMANTICISM
A trip into the magical sonorities of original Romantic instruments and their colorful sound : every register of each instrument has its specific sound, allowing great flexibility regarding nuances in sonority and speaking potential. Instruments as actors/singers, imaginary dialogues and extreme feelings
J.Brahms (1833-1897):
Sonata in f minor op. 120 no. 1 (1894) for clarinet and piano
Sonata in e minor op.38 (1862-65) for cello and piano
Trio in a minor op. 114 (1891) for clarinet, cello and piano
Chamber music as a way of communicating 