Oregon Bach Collegium presents “Stylus Phantasticus: Music of Biber and Friends”

Sunday, May 12th, 3PM at United Lutheran Church, 22nd & Washington, Eugene.

Oregon Bach Collegium presents its last program of the season with “Stylus Phantasticus: Music of Biber and Friends” performed by the Oregon Bach Collegium strings directed by baroque violinist Michael Sand. The 17th century Austrian school of violin playing/composing went the Italians one further, with the development of polyphonic methods of violin playing, using deliberate mis-tunings (called “scordatura”) to render double- and triple-stopping easier. Thus, a piece such as Heinrich von Biber’s Partita No. 2 for Two Violins & Basso Continuo (harpsichord & viola da gamba), with the use of multiple stopping, sounds like an entire string band. Other pieces in fact use the string band, such as Johann Heinrich Schmelzer’s “Fencing School”, and Philip Heinrich Erlebach’s Ouverture No. 4.

Georg Gottlieb Muffat’s Sonata da Camera No. 5 will feature Michael Sand, as soloist. Michael is one of America’s foremost exponents of the baroque violin (called by Isaac Stern “a most convincing exponent” of the instrument). Michael was also founding music director of San Francisco’s Philharmonic Baroque Orchestra and is founder/director of Arcangeli Baroque Strings.

Tickets $10, $5 students, at the door or on-line. For more information, (541) 683-6648.