Gli Incogniti

The French-Italian historical-performance group Gli Incogniti (The Unknowns) did not try to be self-deprecating with their name, taken from that of the Accademia degli Incogniti, a 17th century gathering of Venetian intellectuals. It refers as well to the group's occasional tendency to explore little-known repertory by the likes of Nicola Matteis and Johann Rosenmüller. However, it is Vivaldi, freshly done, who has taken Gli Incogniti to the top of the charts. Gli Incogniti were founded by French violinist Amandine Beyer in 2006. A native of Aix-en-Provence, Beyer took modern violin classes in Paris, emphasizing contemporary music in her studies. But a recommendation from a friend led her to the Schola Cantorum in Basel, Switzerland, and to the teaching of Baroque violinist Chiara Banchini. That proved decisive for Beyer's style, although she has continued to play contemporary music on a modern violin. Beyer plays without a chin rest, uses gut strings, and adopts various other historical techniques; her style varies across the wide variety of Baroque music she plays. She founded Gli Incogniti in 2006, and the group, composed of veterans of various other continental historical-performance ensembles, gave its first concert that year in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Gli Incogniti made their recording debut a year later with an album of Bach violin concertos; they have recorded for Outhere, Zig Zag Territoires, and Harmonia Mundi. A 2008 album featuring Vivaldi's Four Seasons violin concertos and other concertos was both critically and commercially successful, topping French classical charts for several weeks and earning Gli Incogniti the first in a series of awards in France and Germany. The group has toured widely in France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Romania, Poland, Switzerland, China, Japan, and the U.S. Their 2016 release, Un orage d'April (An April Storm), once again showed their ability to apply fresh approaches to extremely familiar material; among the compositions by Johann Pachelbel on the album was the Canon in D major. Later that year, Gli Incogniti released an album of Vivaldi concertos for two violins and orchestra, pairing Beyer with Italian Baroque violinist Giuliano Carmignola.
© James Manheim /TiVo

Albums

4 albums sorted by Most acclaimed

Gli Incogniti Arcangelo Corelli : The Complete Concerti Grossi

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Arcangelo Corelli : The Complete Concerti Grossi

Gli Incogniti

Classical - Released October 14, 2013 | Zig-Zag Territoires

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Gramophone Editor's Choice - Choc de Classica - Hi-Res Audio

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BWV… or not

Gli Incogniti

Chamber Music - Released October 13, 2017 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or - Le Choix de France Musique - 5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik

Bach (Johann Sebastian, that is) or not Bach? This is the question that the violinist Amandine Beyer and the ensemble Gli Incogniti asked themselves by seizing a handful of works long thought to be from the Kantor and that we now know to be from other composers—known, identified or not. Thus, the Sonata BWV 1024 may have “ended up” in Bach’s repertoire because a musicologist knew how to use the right scientific arguments (paper, copyists, geographical and historical contexts) to achieve his goal. The style of the composition, which admittedly is a bit reminiscent of Bach, cannot however quite fall in line with the musician’s writing style. Therefore, in order to avoid the sonata disappearing back into anonymity, it has now been attributed to Pisendel, rightly or wrongly. The Trio BWV 1036 is from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach—we were always quite sure of that, even if some less scrupulous releases have omitted the first name… The Trio BWV 1037 seems to be from Goldberg (the one from the Variations). The Suite in A major BWV 1025 is of somewhat ambiguous paternity, but it’s actually an arrangement Bach created for violin and harpsichord using the Suite SC 47 for lute that his friend and colleague Silvius Leopold Weiss composed. These are a few works that, after long being in the paradise of being attributed to Bach, are now in the hell of the “fake”, even if it’s not the fault of the composers that wrote them! What a pity… © SM/Qobuz