Willem de Fesch: Concerti Grossi & Violin Concertos La Sfera Armoniosa, Mike Fentross & Lidewij van der Voort

• Willem de Fesch (1687 - 1761):
• 1 Concerto Grosso in D Major, Op. 10: No. 4 12:52
• 2 Concerto Grosso in C Major, Op. 3: No. 1 07:54
• 3 Concerto Grosso in E Minor, Op. 3: No. 5 06:59
• 4 Violin Concerto in C Minor, Op. 5: No. 5 09:25
• 5 Concerto Grosso in A Minor 06:45
• 6 Concerto Grosso in C Major, Op. 10: No. 3 08:34
• 7 Concerto Grosso in F Major, Op. 10: No. 5 07:35
• Total Runtime 01:00:04

Info for Willem de Fesch: Concerti Grossi & Violin Concertos

The third release by Mike Fentross and his group La Sfera Armoniosa on Challenge Classics. This new recording is notably interesting as it introduces us to a baroque Dutch composer whose Concertos deserve our attention: Willem de Fesch.

Willem De Fesch was born in Alkmaar in 1687. He deserves an honorable place alongside such greats as Vivaldi and Handel, as his works sound at least as colorful, playful, inventive and sparkling as those of his contemporaries. Sometime after 1700 his parents returned with him to Amsterdam. By then, the city had become an epicentre of music publishers. Many Italian composers published their work in the city; Vivaldi made public appearances and in 1729, Pietro Locatelli even opted to move there.

In 1708, De Fesch was appointed violinist in the orchestra of the Amsterdam City Theatre. He composed a lot of music for stage performances himself, such as the concerts in C and A minor on this recording.

As far as we know, orchestral works only started to appear again in 1741: the audibly matured Opus 10, also on this recording.

Lidewij van der Voort, violin
La Sfera Armoniosa
Mike Fentross, conductor

Lidewij van der Voort
studied modern violin with Johannes Leertouwer at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam, followed by baroque violin at the Conservatoire Royal in Brussels.

In addition she took courses and master classes with Enrico Gatti, John Holloway, Stanley Ritchie, Reinhard Goebel, Roy Goodman and Andrew Manze.

Lidewij is intensely involved in chamber music, predominantly 17th and 18th century violin reportoire. She performs in a number of national and international formations, like string quartets, duos with harpsichord and violin but as solo violinist, too. Lidewij won several prestigious prizes and awards, including the 2000 Ancient Music Competitions in Bruges and Rovereto.

Lidewij works as concert master for The Netherlands Bach Society, the European Union Baroque Orchestra, the Academy of Ancient Music, the New Dutch Academy (Edison 2004) and the Belgium ensemble B’rock. With three colleagues she founded the Holland Baroque Society in 2005. An ensemble, based in Utrecht and working with a range of artistic leaders, creating eight programmes per year. These four musicians provide the artistic blueprint and the organisation of the ensemble’s repertoire. With the Holland Baroque Society, Lidewij has recently won the Kersjes prize and the VSCD Classical Music prize 2008. The Dutch Performing Arts Fund recently awarded the HBS a multi-year subsidy and foresaw a future as an international top ensemble.

Lidewij is a much sought-after violinist with Anima Eterna, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Musica Antiqua Köln en The King’s Consort.

La Sfera Armoniosa
founded in 1992, is a Dutch Baroque ensemble and orchestra specialized in the performance of music from the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Artistic director and conductor is Mike Fentross. In addition to the music of famous composers such as Monteverdi, Haendel and Vivaldi, the ensemble undertakes research into the manuscripts and printed works of the European libraries in order to provide a rich spectrum of music from lesser known composers. The English music magazine Gramophone wrote about their first cd: “How soon will we hear the enchanting La Sfera Armoniosa again, and what fresh buried treasure will they unearth?”

La Sfera Armoniosa is known and praised for it’s lively and colourful sound and for its groundbreaking programmes. They created in 2004 a Schoenberg/ Monteverdi programme that they performed with great success in the Utrecht Early Music Festival and they performed modern world premiers from three almost forgotten opera’s: La Rosinda, l’Ipermestra and Granida. In 2012 the Concertgebouw asked La Sfera to design and perform a special program, the Amsterdam musical life before the concerthall was build, for their 125th anniversary.

La Sfera Armoniosa performed in main festivals and concert halls such as: Festival van Vlaanderen, Festival d’Ambronay, Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, Music Center Vredenburg, Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci, Monteverdi festival Cremona, Festival de Musica Portico de Zamora, Festival Musica Antiqua Bruges, and the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam.

About their performance of the opera La Rosinda by Francesco Cavalli in Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci the press wrote: "This evening, the orchestra has proven that it is amongst the leading baroque orchestras. I will not soon forget the nuances that came from the orchestra pit. That was great art. Nothing more and nothing less."

This album contains no booklet.