Marais Meets Muffatt
Two of Sydney’s finest early music ensembles perform together when “Marais meets Muffat.”
“French clothes, French food, French furniture, French customs, French sins, French illnesses are generally in vogue.” claimed a philosopher of the day, Christian Thomasius, in 1687, although some would beg to add music to the list! French musicians, not just French customs, had an enormous impact across Europe during the baroque and particularly, upon the various small states that made up what we now call Germany.
17th century Germans adored French culture during the baroque era, as American culture had a powerful influence on late 20th century fashion and taste.
The coming together of The Marais Project and The Muffat Collective is a celebration of the special exchange of musical culture that occurred in the late 17th century between France, Germany and Italy. The European musical scene of the time was defined by the merging of these different national styles resulting in some of the most thoughtful, sensitive and satisfying music from the period.
The “Marais meets Muffat” collaboration brings to light some of the delightful but rarely performed music that emerged in Germany as a result of French influences. In a concert co-directed by Jennifer Eriksson and Anthony Abouhamad, The Muffat Collective and The Marais Project, named respectively, after a German and a French composer, present a rare performance of two suites for viola da gamba and strings by Georg Philipp Telemann and his lesser-known colleague, Johann Bernhardt Bach, a second cousin to Johann Sebastian Bach. Also featured are works by Marc-Antoine Charpentier and François Couperin This is a wonderful but all too infrequent opportunity to hear the viol and violin family together.
The Marais Project is very familiar to Sydney audiences while The Muffat Collective represents the new wave of Australian Historically Informed Performance (HIP) ensembles. Composer, professor of rhetoric and traveller, Georg Muffat was the ideal seventeenth-century humanist and gave his name, and his example of a life well lived, to The Muffat Collective.
Tickets: Adult $37; Concession/under 30 $27; Student $15; Child under 12 $10
Bookings: Click here or ph (02) 9955 6580
