For SPT

The Earlymusic Festival wraps up Sunday with a concert of distinguished French ensemble L'Arpeggiata, one of the most highly acclaimed baroque ensembles in Europe (pictured). L'Arpeggiata's performances are frequently aimed at bridging baroque music with the traditional repertoire and unveiling lesser-known masterpieces of French, Italian and Neapolitan baroque music. L'Arpeggiata gives its only local concert Sunday, Oct.3 in Yekaterininsky Palace of Tsarskoye Selo.

Prior to that, William Dongois gives a concert on the zink, a curved six-finger pipe also known as a cornetto curvo or krumme zink, in the Grand Palace in Peterhof on Saturday, Oct 2. In 16th and 17th centuries this versatile Renaissance instrument was used in concerts of classical music as well as rural festivities, and religious and court ceremonies. The sound of the instrument was compared to the sound of the human voice when the instrument emerged and one critic even said "one might mistake it for a choice eunuch!"

According to Benvenuto Cellini, it was his cornet playing that procured him a position with Pope Clement VII who hired him on the spot after hearing Cellini perform the soprano part.

Dongois originally studied trumpet in Rheims and Paris, but eventually his passion for the early repertoir inspired him to try his hands at the early cornet.

Galina Stolyarova

News source: times.spb.ru
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