ABOUT THE PROGRAM

featuring Tekla Cunningham as the virtuoso violinist who is the perfect instrumental protagonist for this journey through the wild and wonderful, semi-improvised world of 17th century violin music from Italy and Germany. The compositions included on this provide prime examples of the lineage of the Stylus Phantasticus from its Italian roots, before Kircher wrote his definition, to its later development into an "imperial style" associated with Central Europe and the Habsburgs. The famous Jesuit Father Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) wrote in Book VII of the Musurgia Universalis describing different musical styles, but, in particular, he defined a "fantastical style" for instruments:

"The Stylus Phantasticus is appropriate to instruments. It is the most free and unfettered method of composition, bound to nothing, neither to words, nor to a harmonious subject. It is organized with regard to manifest invention, the hidden reason of harmony, and an ingenious, skilled connection of harmonic phrases and fugues. And it is divided into, those pieces which are commonly called Phantasias, Ricercatas, Toccatas, and Sonatas.”