Herbsttagung in St. Gallen, Samstag 12. November 2022 - Referent:innen 2

Maria Christina Cleary (harp) and Davide Monti (violin) 

ARPARLA, an Italian/Irish duo, uses music as their way to speak and communicate with others, using the soft and re(ned sonorities of the harp and the expressive range of colours of the violin. Their repertoire focuses on the Baroque period and the transition period between classicism and romanticism (17th-19th centuries), a repertoire that their instruments can perfectly express the aesthetic of these epochs. 
Arparla presents a whole palette of different colours due to their intense and varied transversal artistic activities. With energy and enthusiasm, the Cleary/Monti duo has performed to wide acclaim for audiences in Europe, as well as in Canada, Japan, Uganda and Australia, at international festivals, also working in collaboration with organisations such as the Italian NGO COOPI, with the Menuhin Foundation. Arparla’s communicative performances deliver a powerful musical message that transcends cultures. 
Davide and Maria founded the Helicona Method in 2013, which teaches musical improvisation in a historical multidisciplinary environment, using strategies drawn from disciplines such as dance, Commedia dell'Arte, fencing and horse riding, with the aim of facilitating the opening of the mind and exploring the physicality of the musical gesture. To date, over 1,000 people worldwide have taken Helicona Method courses. They have taught improvisation and historical performance practice in over 30 conservatories on (ve continents, including the Juilliard School of Music in New York, Mozarteum in Salzburg, Sydney Conservatorium and Makerere University in Kampala.
They teach at the Conservatorio di Verona and the Haute École de Musique de Genève. 
Their discography includes over 80 CDs, including recordings of Spohr's complete sonatas for violin and harp (2 CDs), Marco Uccellini's Opus 4 and 5 for violin and basso continuo, and a collection of 17th century Italian sonatas. 

Erforschen des Ungeschriebenen in der Barockzeit - Eine Fallstudie im italienischen Repertoire des 17. Jahrhunderts 
Investigating the unwritten in the Baroque Era: 17th century repertoire as a case study.Our presentation aims to explore three pillars of the Baroque that can help when interpreting the unwritten elements of a musical score. The first is the relationship between musical thoughts and the written notation: in fact ancient scores require close reading and, moreover, interpretation, often involving improvisation, the creative on-the-spot act, to complete the canovaccio scores. The other pillars are rhetoric in musical structure (Distributio) and rhetoric as a communication tool (Elocutio). Baroque music is based upon Classical Oratory, hence rhetoric is fundamental in informed performance practises when understanding how emotions and ideas can be expressed in music (Affektenlehre). This is the basis of Arparla’s performance including works by Uccellini, Michelangelo Rossi, Biber and Corelli, to show the evolution of the late Renaissance aesthetic up to the beginning of the 18^th century.