Concert with a guided tour of the Bach exhibition

Salomé Gasselin's musical career was by no means predestined: Music long competed with rugby, visual arts, and genetics. Having won various awards, including those in Lugano and Koethen, she is now well-established in the European early music scene and is in demand as a soloist and chamber musician.

Known by his contemporaries as a viol player, Biber is now associated in our minds with the violin and his Mystery sonatas. A fire in 1735 is said to have destroyed much of Biber’s viol repertoire, which would explain why we only found one solo sonata for this instrument. In addition to this piece, we have chosen to transcribe the Guardian Angel’s passacaglia from the Mystery Sonatas in our program. Johann-Sebastian Bach drew inspiration from Biber’s music and his sonatas and partitas are part of a lineage stemming from Biber’s work. In dialogue with Biber’s music, we offer transcriptions of Chorale Préludes and the suite for lute in C minor for theorbo and gamba.This flexibility in the appropriation of the musical text may come as a surprise today. The repertoire was not definitively assigned to one instrument or another but moved around from one to the next. This fluidity led us to explore Bach and Biber’mysteries. Profound, these mysteries never fully unveil themselves but are constantly revealed.