By Isabel Ovalle
The Doha Baroque Ensemble, founded in 2011, gives an extra dimension to baroque pieces by introducing Arab influences. The professional musicians who are part of this group are specialists in putting on period performances and playing on old instruments.
The goal of the Ensemble is both to recreate the period style and give lively performances of baroque music and to create a dialogue between oriental and occidental cultures. The Ensemble has held about ten concerts so far.
Three members of the Ensemble are German, with the other three hailing from the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Egypt. The Ensemble is unique in its use of the ‘kanoun’, a traditional Arab instrument, in its baroque repertoire.
Ines Wein, a German violinist, said she met Katrin Meingast, who plays the viola and is also from Germany, at a concert. Soon after, they found another violin player who also was interested in baroque music. Later, the others joined and the ensemble now has six regular members.
“We try to reconstruct the way of playing of the baroque times using antique instruments,” said Wein. A year ago, the ensemble began walking a new path, that of mixing baroque and Arab music.
“One of our basic ideas is to always use the instruments we have access too, like the Arab ones,” added the musician.
The violinist said that, surprisingly, the Arab way of playing and the historical way of playing baroque music were somewhat similar. “The fusion was very difficult at first. First there’s a melody and later you have to think a lot about ornamentation. It’s about the good taste of a good musician,” she explained.
Meingast, the viola player, said currently there was a strong trend in Europe of playing historical instruments.
“It’s very common to find baroque ensembles that play the lute and percussion. In future we want to add more Arab instruments,” she added, noting that in some performances they were accompanied by a choir, namely, the Back choir.
Ines, the violinist, thinks people here are ready for this kind of music, “but they just don’t know about it,” she admitted.
However, many pieces of baroque music are very well known, but Europeans usually play for European or American audiences.
“That’s not what we want, we want to play for a wider audience and we have found some Arab people who are aware and they want to listen to something new,” said the musician.
Wein explained that baroque music had a lot of energy and it was not difficult to understand. In baroque times the music was composed at the court for the entertainment of the king and others in the court, where it was usually played as background music. “We don’t want to be only background music, we want the people listening to us,” said the violinist.
The ensemble faces the challenge of finding composers other than the well-known ones like Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Händel and Georg Philipp Telemann. Nevertheless, they also play some little known but great pieces by Maurizio Cazzati, Marco Uccellini, Tarquinio Merula, Jean-Marie Leclair, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber von Bibern and many others.
Passion for baroque music requires research and innovation. “We find scores online, which were written by the composers. We go to the libraries and study the printed stuff and sometimes we play from the manuscript,” said Meingast.
The viola player admitted that finding the right venue for concerts was difficult, as was the maintenance of their antique instruments. “We bring them from Europe and pray that they don’t break here, because there’s no one to fix them,” she said.
Even though baroque music dates back to the 16th century, the Doha ensemble has many ideas like adding dancers and fireworks to their performances. The group is also considering holding concerts at private homes.”It’s a perfect way to get to know the people and interact with them. Music and art are a very good bridge for cultures to meet,” added the musician.
“Our music is a synthesis of Arab and European traditions and we hope the guests find our unusual use of Arab instruments and oriental percussion surprising and inspiring,” she added.
The group was recently invited to play at the Museum of Islamic Art in concert with Baroque Music from Dresden and is the founder of a concert series at the German School. It is being supported by the German Embassy in Doha since 2012.
To celebrate four decades of friendly relations between Qatar and Germany, a unique bilateral cultural evening was held on April 24 in the Rizon Jet VIP Terminal at Doha International Airport. During the evening, the Ensemble played a selection of Italian and German baroque pieces and Arab music.
Information about the ensemble and its upcoming performances can be found at www.facebook/DohaBaroqueEnsemble.
