Barroc Mallorca, an initiative of the Mallorcan violinist Blai Justo, aims to spread baroque music with historical instruments and criteria. Blai Justo has followed a professional career that has led him to specialize in this repertoire with the Belgian violinist and conductor Sigiswald Kuijken, a representative of historical performance in the most purist aspect.
Blai Justo wants to make known the original way of playing the repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries by reproducing the acoustic conditions of this time. For this purpose, baroque music must be performed with a violin, a bow and accessories that correspond to the stage of evolution of the instrument at that time. On the other hand, the interpretation must conform to the criteria set out in the documents of the period: instrumental and theoretical treatises, philosophy, iconography, organology, rhetoric, etc.
As for Blai Justo’s instrument, it is a violin built by Russian luthier Dmitry Badiarov, who for years has researched documentary and iconographic sources to faithfully reproduce the instrument as it was in the mid-18th century. The baroque violin must also carry three strings of pure gut and one wound gut string. Another condition of great importance is the absence of chinrest and schoulder rest, which were later incorporated.
In relation to the violin technique, Blai Justo plays the violin chin off, as explained in the treatise of Franceso Geminiani, which is the one that most clearly exposes the baroque technique. Geminiani was part of the Corellian school, which was the most widespread and evolved. This way of playing can be seen in all the iconography of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Among the activities of Barroc Mallorca stands out the organization of specialized original interpretation of baroque music stages. These activities are aimed at both students or professionals of modern instruments who want to have a first contact with early music, as well as musicians who are already working with original instruments.
With the collaboration of the City Council of Sóller, on April 20, 2008, the Baroque Violin Introduction Stage was organized. At the end of the course a concert was offered in which the students performed, together with the teacher, the works worked on.
The musical level of the participants and their motivation, as well as the response of the public, were a stimulus to give continuity to this project. The II Baroque Violin Stage took place on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of August 2008 at the "Can Dulce" Cultural Center in Sóller. On the last day of the course the students, together with the teacher and the accompanying harpsichordist Salomon Leevwarden, gave a closing concert with works by Giovanni Bassano, Giovanni Battista Fontana, Georg Philipp Telemann, Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach.
Between February 27 and March 1, 2009, the III Baroque Violin Stage took place in the premises of the Municipal School of Music of Sóller. The course ended with a concert by the students, accompanied by the teacher.
If you are interested in organizing one of these stages at your school, you can contact us here.
Concerts are also important in the task of disseminating historical interpretation. Barroc Mallorca offers concerts to the main programmers from all over the world. You can check here a list of the programs we currently offer. For additional information, do not hesitate to contact us.
