Les Contre-Sujets (FR)

Les Contre-Sujets, formed in 2012 in Paris, is a Baroque ensemble who focuses on original interaction with the audience and exploring new concert formats. In 2015, the ensemble was a finalist at the Göttingen Haendel Competition and at the Concours du Val de Loire, presided by William Christie. Since then, the ensemble has been selected by the EEEmerging project and has consequently held residencies in the Early Music Centres of Ambronay (France), York (Great-Britain) and Ljubljana (Slovenia).

Les Contre-Sujets have also been invited to the Fringe concerts of the MAfestival (Bruges) and Oude Muziek festival (Utrecht), have played live on the radio at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and have been elected Young Ensemble 2017 by Vincent Dumestre (dir. of Le Poème Harmonique) for the next season of La Chapelle Corneille in Rouen (France).

Long-term projects of Les Contre-Sujets include poetry, gastronomy, synaesthesia and a renewed partnership with the Musée Delacroix in Paris for an innovative cycle of concerts about the Greek mythology.

Cast: Samuel Rotsztejn - recorder, Koji Yoda - violin, Maya Enokida - violin & viola, Eric Tinkerhess - cello, Takahisa Aida - harpsichord

Engineer, mathematics teacher for graduate students, recorder, baroque flute and harpsichord player, Samuel Rotsztejn is dedicated to building bridges between cultures and artistic disciplines. Laureate of the 2007 SOGEDA Scholarship for promising young talents born in Monaco, Samuel is also a composer whose last piece for harpsichord was created in 2015 at the Haendel House Museum in London. His favourite colour has always been and will always be yellow and he was born on the same day Telemann was appointed music director of the five churches of Hamburg (only not the same year).       

Koji Yoda was born in Japan where he received an MA in violin at the Toho-Gakuen University in Tokyo. Since 2009, he has been specializing in baroque violin with Patrick Bismuth in Paris, where he graduated with highest honours. He now performs with prestigious ensembles such as Les Musiciens du Louvre, La Fenice, Le Concert Spirituel, and l’Academia Montis Regalis. Koji is also a pastry cook selected by renowned Parisian chef Pierre Hermé, and dreams of designing projects involving music and gastronomy.   

Maya Enokida has been specialising in historical performance on period instruments at the Trinity College of Music in London. In 2013, she won the Trinity Early Music Competition and performed live on BBC Radio 3's 'In Tune'. She has worked with important ensembles such as Florilegium and the Academy of Ancient Music in the UK, Le Concert Spirituel and Orchestre Français des Jeunes Baroque in France, and she has been touring with ensembles Diderot and Les Figures.

Described by ResMusica as “impeccable,” “a beautiful presence,” Eric Tinkerhess is from Ann Arbor, Michigan (US), and is currently studying the viola da gamba and French poetry at the Sorbonne in Paris after a BA in cello performance at the Oberlin Conservatory and a MA at the Paris Conservatory where he studied with Christophe Coin. In 2015, Eric recorded for Audax Records (five stars from Diapason Magazine) and gave master classes at Huddersfield University (UK) and the Shanghai Conservatory. Eric also performs with ensembles La Jupiter and Consonances.

Born in Japan, Takahisa Aida studied at the University of Fine Arts in Tokyo in the class of Masaaki Suzuki and at the Paris Conservatory in the classes of Olivier Baumont, Blandine Rannou and Kenneth Weiss, where he received a MA in harpsichord and basso continuo with highest honours and attended master classes with Pierre Hantaï, Noëlle Spieth and Bertrand Cuiller. Winner of the 23^rd Yamanashi International Early Music Competition in Japan, Takahisa tours both as a soloist and continuo player in ensembles La Jupiter and Les Figures. He is also a teacher in several French Conservatories.

Artist message to visitors

What is a concerto? You know you have already heard the name before but you are not sure about the meaning… Then this programme was made for you! And trust me, in the end, not only will you master the art of the concerto but you will also be able to tell the nationality of the composers and impress your friends (and yourself).

(Samuel Rotsztejn)

Programme

Jacques-Christophe Naudot (1690-1762):

Concerto (Opus XVII/5)

Allegro / Adagio / Allegro

Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)

IVe pièce de clavecin en concert

La Pantomime / L’Indiscrète / La Rameau

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)

Concerto

Allegro / Largo / Allegro

*****

Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758):

Sonata in canon (FaWV N:d4)

Andante / Allegro / Largo / Allegro non molto

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)

Sonata (TWV 42:D11)

Allegro / Adagio / Vivace

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)

Concerto a 4 (TWV 43:g4)

Allegro / Adagio / Allegro

About the concert programme

In the 18^th century, the notion of orchestra was not as stable as it is nowadays with symphonic orchestras. It depended on the region and on the occasion. The viola, for instance, sometimes called violetta or viola da braccio, was not used in every piece of music and many concertos were written for chamber orchestras: a soloist, two violins and basso continuo (cello and harpsichord), without a viola. This programme compares famous pieces written for two violins, with others rarely played, written for violin and viola.

The title of the concert, (Not so Italian) concertos, highlights a funny historical fact: no matter how hard French and German composers tried to make their concertos sound Italian thanks to technical and harmonic effects inherited from Corelli, they could never succeed entirely, and at some point, their music betrays them and gives us hints about their nationality! French composers called this attempt La Réunion des Goûts, offering a double perspective on music, both Italian and French. The aim of this concert is to offer the audience the means to identify and appreciate these ambiguous delightful moments of music.

Who are the celebrities of the programme? Vivaldi and Rameau, for sure! Maybe Telemann. But who knows Naudot and Fasch nowadays?!

Like many Parisian composers in the 1730s, Naudot was a Freemason, in contact with Clérambault and Boismortier, in charge of the music of his Lodge. He wrote many (and exclusively) sonatas and concertos for flute, and his skills of interpretation and as a professor brought him several cultural patrons.

Fasch was a famous German violinist, organist and composer who studied with Kuhnau and Graupner. His music accomplished the transition between the baroque and the classical eras. He was even respected by the great Johann Sebastian Bach himself who copied down some of his pieces!

This programme is a tribute to forgotten composers such as Naudot and Fasch who were rightfully notorious in their time, as well as an opportunity for the audience to discover unusual pieces of these Masters.