SOIRÉE

A varied, festive and virtuosic programme, inspired by the Central European tradition of salon orchestras These instrumental ensembles, very popular in Central Europe, used to perform music both in civil salons and dance halls. Their line-ups varied greatly, both in the number of musicians and in the types of instruments used. In most cases, the core of the ensemble consisted of a string group with piano. In our case, we add the flute (following the Viennese tradition) and the clarinet (following the Berlin tradition), completing the magical formula of the ensemble with an accordion. The concert follows the idea of a potpourri-style programme, also typical of salon music, and plays with the spirit of Cocteau’s manifesto “Le coq et l’arlequin”, which advocates for a simple, light, pleasant and graceful kind of music—standing in contrast to the more “complicated” aesthetics that dominated the early twentieth century.