Programmes

Florilegium

In Florilegium False Consonance deals with the intersection of French and Italian Baroque music from the perspective of the composer Georg Muffat, who in particular in his two publications Florilegium primum (1695) and secundum (1698) attempted to achieve a compositional synthesis of both styles:

“The notes, the pages, the lovely music-thons give me my tasks, and since I blend in the French style of the Germans and the Welsh, I do not instigate a war, but perhaps play to the peace of the peoples of the desired harmony.”

Muffat, who can be considered a true cosmopolitan of his time and who lived and studied in both France and Italy, as well as in Prague and Salzburg, until he finally spent his last years in Passau, sought not only to combine what he considered to be the best elements of both types of composition, but above all to emphasise what is common, unifying and reconciliatory in the music of the most important European nations. From today's point of view, he is thus a pioneer of the European idea of "unity in diversity" - an intellectual achievement that has been increasingly faltering in recent years.

The programme begins with one of Muffat's Concerti grossi, here reduced to a trio movement, which bears the special, almost romantic title "Delirium amoris" (Engl. "Love Delusion") and in which Italian-influenced instrumental movements alternate with French dances. The audience will also meet two composers who are directly connected to Georg Muffat and who influenced him: Arcangelo Corelli, who became one of the most admired musicians in Europe with his violin sonatas op. 5, and Marin Marais, who, like Muffat, studied with the court composer of Louis XIV, Jean-Baptiste Lully, and who had a decisive influence on the French style. Before concluding with one of Muffat's most moving works, a large-scale Chaconne (also in a trio arrangement), the programme looks at a composer in whom Muffat's desire for "togetherness" lived on to a certain extent: when the so-called "buffet" was being played in France in the middle of the 18th century, Muffat's desire for "togetherness" was also being expressed in a trio arrangement. When the so-called "Buffonist Controversy" broke out in France in the middle of the 18th century, a bitter dispute as to which opera style, Italian or French, was better, Joseph Bodin de Boismortier refused to take a stand on the matter and withdrew from musical life, for he had always tried to unite elements from both directions.

The word Florilegium roughly translates as "blossom selection": False Consonance presents in its eponymous programme self-selected blossoms of French and Italian music as well as Muffat's intermingled style, by people who were close to him and influenced or carried away his cosmopolitan world of thought. Georg Muffat himself, who translates the word as "flower alliance", also adds the following thought:

“Music has this in common with flowers, that it fosters shadow and cold, but grows and is preserved by light and warmth.”