Jeanine Krause, Artistic Director
Celebrating the lively spirit of Baroque winds in the world of today.
Dragons‘ Delight
Symphonie des Dragons explores the repertoire of the great wind bands of Versailles. A full complement of oboes and bassoons—with doubling on recorders—rounded out by guitar and percussion makes this an ensemble of seldom heard color and timbre.
The exciting program begins at the elegant Paris opera with a suite from Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre’s 1694 tragédie lyrique, “Céphale et Procris“, which the composer dedicated to her sovereign, the Sun King, Louis XIV. The curtain falls and time stands still as the Dragons invoke otherworldliness by intoning Frederick the Great’s beguiling “royal theme”, the inspiration for Johann Sebastian Bach’s mesmerizing Musical Offering. After the mind and soul bending craft of two of Bach’s canons, the beat of the drum leads back to earth and into nature. As the sun rises, the Dragons march into the fields, breathing life into a suite of vibrant tunes lovingly preserved by Louis XIV’s court librarian and oboist, André Danican Philidor, the younger.
Symphonie-de-dragons.com
Dessus de hautbois: Beate Bartelmeß, Wolfgang Dey, Jeanine Krause, Dagmar Nilles, Naomi Sladdin
Haute-contre de hautbois: Antonello Cola, Wolfram Schweickhardt
Taille de hautbois: Eduard Wesly, Gabi Vogel
Bassoon: Victor Gutu, Arie Hordijk, Clemens Schlemmer, Ursula Vogt
Theorbo: Yoshio Takayanagi
Percussion: Peter A. Bauer
