INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra is bringing the sounds of the 1600s and 1700s to life this week with two concerts featuring historically authentic instruments and performances led by artistic director Barthold Kuijken.
“When you play on original instruments, you hear the music as the composer intended,” Kuijken said. “These wooden flutes, gut strings and early harpsichords have a completely different sound — warmer, more intimate. It changes everything about how we understand this music.”
The orchestra’s Oct. 7 concert will feature Italian Baroque music, with a focus on Arcangelo Corelli, one of the era’s most influential composers.
About 15 musicians will perform on instruments authentic to the period, including violins with gut strings and early woodwinds.
Kuijken describes Corelli as “the musical pope” of Rome around 1700. The program also includes works by Corelli’s predecessors and students, giving audiences a look at the evolution of Italian Baroque music.
The second concert, “The Art of Conversation,” features a smaller ensemble of four musicians playing harpsichord, cello, flute and violin.
The performance explores the conversational nature of Baroque chamber music, with the instruments interacting almost like friends in dialogue.
“Instead of the outgoing, formal orchestra sound, this concert is inward, very sensitive, very elegant,” Kuijken said. “It’s what people would have enjoyed together on a good Sunday afternoon.”
Kuijken, who is from Belgium, will perform on the traverso, a one-keyed wooden flute that has a distinctly different sound from the modern metal flute.
He has played the historical instrument for 60 years and is considered an influential figure in the historically informed performance movement.
The Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra was founded in 1997 and has grown from intimate performances into an ensemble known for its historically informed approach to Baroque music. The orchestra has maintained a residency at the University of Indianapolis since 1999.
Musicians perform on historical instruments dating from 1600 to 1750 or on carefully crafted replicas designed to recreate the sounds composers such as Bach, Handel and Vivaldi would have known.
