Programmes

Our concert programmes are very carefully prepared in many ways: musically, historically and rhetorically. The presentation of the pieces and the interaction with the audience are crucial for us; we would like the listener to listen actively, to become a part of the music itself. We understand the performance as a journey through emotions, giving it unity from the first to the last note.

Here you can see an overview of our main programmes with the full ensemble. Please don not hesitate to contact us to know more about our programming.


MUSIC OF THRONES

Traverso, 2 violins, viola & continuo

Works by Bach, Lully, Boccherini, Frederick the Great… and some compositions capable of scaring the greatest kings of Europe.

 The music of Music of Thrones is music with a history behind that touches the real life of Kings and Emperors of Europe. Pieces that really moved Kings. Musical pieces that were loved by kings and rulers, and some music sometimes feared by them.


TELEMANN. CHAMBER MUSIC MASTERPIECES OF THE CABINET II

Rarely performed chamber masterpieces by Telemann

Traverso, 2 violins, viola, violoncello and harpsichord

Georg Philipp Telemann was one of the most famous and renowned composers of his time. His fame and works were spread all around Europe as one of the most appreciated living composers of his era and he could count among his friends the crème de la crème of the culture and musical high society: Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach, Georg Friederich Handel, Georg Pisendel or Johann Joachim Quantz were just a few of his friends.

In addition, Telemann is considered one of the most prolific composers in history and his works are cataloged in the so-called Telemann-Werke-Verzeichnis (Telemann Works Catalogue), abbreviated as TWV. Today the list of these TWV’s comprises more than 6000 works. Still we are rediscovering new works by Telemann and a number of his masterpieces remain silent waiting to sound again after hundreds of years. To rediscover some of the most beautiful and yet unperformed instrumental works by Telemann, we travelled to Dresden and to the collection found in the so-called Schrank II (Cabinet II, in reference to its original shelf in the library of the Dresden Court Orchestra) where an incredible amount of scores are waiting to be dusted.


TURCARIA

European musical images of the Orient in the baroque

Traverso, 2 violins, viola, continuo & percussions

Love, hate, fascination, rejection, curiosity… visions of the Islamic world by European composers during the XVII and XVIII centuries. A journey through the eyes of the Europeans looking at the Orient, the discovery of a vision that maybe did not change as much as we think.

The programme had earned the acclamation of the critic in the past Ambronay Festival 2013. Includes some pieces that are not played since XVIII century and a blues at the end!


TRANSFIGURATIONS

Traverso, 2 violins, viola & continuo

Transfigurations is a new concert proposal by Les Esprits Animaux. A fresh, original and deeply historical informed concert that offers to the audience an original and kaleidoscopic approach to the world of variations, metamorphoses, transformations and transfigurations in baroque music: How a few notes can be used to build a work of art or how a simple song can be transformed through time and space. canons, fugues, variations, grounds, folk songs that become classical, and classical melodies  that make their way into popular music, and much more!


À PARIS!

Recorder, traverso, 2 violins, viola & continuo

Music for the city of the lights from 1710 to 1750… Music for a city, for its palaces and streets, from the nobility to the common people who lived in one of the most important cities in Europe. A travel through time and space to the musical life of Paris in the baroque. With this program the ensemble was selected as “Promising ensemble 2011” in the International Young Artists Platform in Antwerp.


TELEMANN, A JOURNEY THROUGH LITERATURE

Recorder, traverso, 2 violins, viola & continuo

A programme focused on G.P. Telemann, literature and affects. Love, madness, braveness, travels, real and fictional stories all together to build an original and fascinating program celebrated by both critics and audience. Recorded for Ambronay Éditions (Harmonia Mundi) in 2011 in the first CD of Les Esprits Animaux.


B A BA BAROQUE!

Didactic  concert  introducing baroque music for all the family!

Works  by  Bach,  Boismortier, Rameau,  Telemann  and  traditional baroque music with a healthy amount of improvisation. Basso  continuo,  counterpoint, rhetoric, ornamentation, gut strings… the  lively  musicians  of  Les  Esprits Animaux  take  a unique  look  full  of humour and simplicity at the vocabulary and techniques of the repertory defended by them with zeal.

After  this  gratifying  concert,  Baroque  music  will  have  no  secrets  for  you  and  your children! A  show  prepared  and  built  during  their  residence  in  Centre  Culturel  de  Rencontre d’Ambronay  in  the  summer  of  2014  together  with  the specialist  and  stage  director  JeanMichel Fournereau.

–  N.B. The show is presented in French. Please don’t hesitate to contact us for other languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese in preparation!)