Early music underwent a powerful renewal from the 1960s to 1980s, with the big names of what is known today as the first generation, such as Harnoncourt and Leonhardt. Then there was a second generation that sought to tidy up their work at the conceptual level. It came 15 years later, with Il Giardino Armonico, among other groups. Technical work was done which could not be done before, in part because of structural problems with the instruments themselves.

Where to do place yourself in this evolution of generations? As part of the third generation?

My case is special because my brother Lorenzo, along with the lute player Luca Pianca among others, founded Il Giardino Armonico. I am 10 years younger than my brother, but I lived that period first-hand. It was a school for me.

What in your opinion is the current status of early music?

I believe that as a movement, early music is worn out in the sense that it has nothing revolutionaryto offer. Rather, to the contrary, it is becoming dangerously dogmatic. This has bothered me and it continues to bother me because its strength lay in trying to break the patterns which had formed in traditional classical music. These days early music schools teach in exactly the same rigid way as the one they aimed to break. Of course, one needs to know the rules that give consistency to the language of each style, but in early music a very poor vocabulary has been created, fashioned with four rules that seem more like four tricks. But this is not true in every case, of course.

What is the way to get out of this rut?

The final goal of our work is to look for ways to express ourselves. For this reason I have spent many years studying, reading and defending my opinions. I am tired of sterile debates. So I no longer want to talk about mundane issues, on whether I use this or that string and that kind of thing. I realize that musicians long ago knew much more than we do. For this reason it is better to copy their experiences, learn from them and not go mad in searches that go nowhere. However we must be careful to pursue the true nature of things and not that which is superficial, copying mechanically without understanding deeper matters. Both in copying original instruments and performance techniques we cannot simply apply rules that do not guarantee we are doing the right thing. Music is freedom. One can perceive some things, but it is in subtlety, in the musician’s “duende”, as flamenco performers say, where the true secret of our work lies.

Then where do rules of performance and knowledge of style fit in?

When well applied, rules can help us broaden our freedom and with it, our creative freedom, along with the limits of moral life. For example, why does a “crossover” generally taste bland? Because it is thought that by eliminating limits we increase freedom. Indeed,Hindu music with its strict rules has a stronger feel if the musician manages to feel free within the rules. People come to think that living without rules will make us freer, but this is totally false. In music, rules lead us to compress our personality and this allows it to explode with more force. A concrete example: it is now the fashion to play early music with respect for the pulse, following a rhythm that is almost free, known metaphorically as poetic. When one listens to this at first it sounds interesting, but eventually it is disturbing. On the other hand, in traditional popular music the rhythm is rigid but the musicians have much more freedom to play with rubato, which is true rhythmic freedom and comes from a rule that is almost genetic. The challenge for today’s musician is to look for his or her roots, something that is complicated for us Europeans because our music is quite hidden or has disappeared altogether. I look for my freedom in traditional music. By listening to musicians who have maintained a popular tradition it is easier to understand the treatises of early music.

What path have you followed in seeking a language of your own?

I was lucky to follow a rather odd path as a student. I always stayed to one side, watching, learning and choosing that which I liked, so I was able to follow my teachers carefully. I don’t think it is necessary to recreate music exactly the way it was. Besides being impossible, this lacks artistic sense. It only has sense from a musicological point of view. By definition, art is creation and creation is what is happening right now, during the concert. The idea that I have to imitate someone who lived 300 years ago is silly. Of course, the important thing is to study how they really expressed themselves and thus learn a language, just like learning a foreign language. If I want to speak Chinese, I have to learn Chinese grammar and when I speak I must be clear about what I want to say. Otherwise it would be just a phonetic copy of what my Chinese teacher told me.

What is your position on this subject as a teacher?

Hubert Leblanc says in his treatise (one of my favorites) that “it is very dangerous to teach students to captivate the audience before working with the instrument for many years and intensely because this way they know only the shell of the music without having tasted any of its true sweetness.” As a professor I see many students who master the gestures of a great performer of early music, but when I ask them to play a scale in sol major they are speechless because they don’t know the fingering. Centering teaching on the issues of phrasing, spirit and such things made sense in the 1960s because we all know that in music in general phrasing is necessary. It is not just inherent to early music. This argument has been heard many times. The work I have done myself and which I do with my students is very difficult at a technical level and as far as respecting the text goes. This is what allows one to reach the freedom I spoke of earlier. These days it is necessary to work hard to improve your technique. It is the only way to break out of the early music club, this ghetto to which we have condemned ourselves. We must take full advantage of the expressive material of the early music repertoire, which I really like, and the instruments available to us, in order to create new things. We are not limited to playing the same things our whole lives.

Has your teaching helped you define your style of performing?

Yes, certainly. Teaching a certain discipline involves raising doubts and questions. The same thing applies to giving a lecture. This has helpd me find time to look for sources and study them thoroughly. It is the only way to ratify intuition with concrete examples and information. When I teach a class, rather than teach tricks or rules I try to make available to students keys that will help them tap their own means of expression. Teaching is a difficult task because you must push the students to advance constantly, but at the same time you cannot make them face insurmountable obstacles. When I come across students with talent I fear ruining them because I have seen too many musicians spoiled by their teachers. In general I give them few elements, hoping that they themselves find what is essential. As Oscar Wilde said, the truly important things in life cannot be taught.

What are the possibilities and limits of the viola da gamba?

Once again, Leblanc says “one must not trust maestros who say the viol is a limited instrument; it is teachers who are limited”. In my case I have been criticized repeatedly by people who say my viol sounds like a cello. Indeed, I try to make my instrument sound like a cello, like a flute, like a violin. I want it to erase its own limitations. I have observed this many times in folk musicians. I remember a wonderful concert by a Mongolian musician who imitated his own voice with the instrument he was playing. You couldn’t tell if he was singing or playing. In my work with Luca Pianca we try to broaden the spectrum of colors as much as possible. The most recent record, Pièces de Caractère, attempts to imitate the style of the miniaturist painters. In each song we try to capture diverse characters with the same instrument. That is my goal: to speak with the instrument, to tell different stories in each concert.

Does that criticism make you feel like an outsider in the world of viola da gamba music?

I used to feel that way, but not any more because I have come a long way. My musical career developed naturally. I would read a sheet of Forqueray and think that the score did not correspond to the sound of the viol as we know it. I started off trying to make my instrument give what was asked for by such virtuoso music. We did research with the Swiss luthier Luc Breton and thought long and hard about the structure of the instrument, eventually realizing that there were serious conceptual problems in the basic construction. Among other things we changed the way of attaching the bridge. We reached these conclusions first through intuition and subsequently attained confirmation observing original instruments in museums. We managed to make the instrument sound different, larger. We made it an instrument that responded to the requirements of the musical scores. We immediately broke the pre-conceived notion of “listening” to the viola da gamba. Until then a specific sound was sought since no one conceived of any other way to play the instrument. I am sure Forqueray or Marais or thousands of others of viol players played in their own particular way, and certainly all of them played better than we do.

Does the change you refer to have more to do with the way the instrument is built than the way it is played?

Both. For this reason it is important that the musician work with a luthier he or she trusts. In the same way that I ask Luc Breton for a certain sound from the instrument, he tells me what it can do if I change techniques. Over the course of my life I have changed my playing technique completely six times.

What difference do you find between the way your duo with Luca Pianca expresses itself and you work with Quartetto Italiano di Viole da Gamba?

They are very different musical groups. To play in a duo is like working as a soloist for both musicians. Working as a foursome is to work in a group. Still, the result is the same, although with highly different means. It is much harder to play in a foursome, but when it goes right there are times when the music is positively divine. When I play a concert with Luca, I feel that we manage to “speak” for about 10 seconds. With the Quartetto it only lasts three seconds but they are magical, powerful moments.

What is Il Suonar Parlante?

On one hand it is the new name of Quartetto Italiano di Viole da Gamba, because this name was a bit narrow considering what the group actually was. On the other hand it is the name of a series of seminars, courses and concerts that I organized in Milan. I got the name from a line descended from Paganini. He could say people’s names with his violin, and this tradition lives on today. There is a double base player in Rome named Capodieci who can still “say” people’s names with the double bass. In the old days it was the foundation of producing sound. When it was said that Paganini’s violin reproduced the human voice, that was exactly the case. That’s why we have adopted the name for the group and the seminars.

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