Das Ensemble
The oboist Elisabeth Baumer established the Italo-Austrian ensemble Affinità in 2012, to create a platform dedicated to the execution of chamber music, in cooperation with close musician friends.
Inspired by the delicate sentiments expressed in Goethe’s Elective Affinities, the ensemble’s name borrows from its translation into Italian: Le affinità elettive. The name also evokes the Italophile Habsburg emperors of the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as the close relationship between the imperial chapel in Vienna and many Italian musicians.
The members of Affinità all specialised in early music at Europe’s leading music universities. They perform on historical instruments or on copies, and regularly cooperate with prestigious baroque orchestras and ensembles active on the international early music scene.
The ensemble focuses on baroque chamber music for woodwind instruments, combining imaginative interpretations of well-known works with exciting rediscoveries. In doing so, the ensemble seeks in particular to unfold the full expressiveness of this repertoire, drawing on all the rhetorical means of baroque musical discourse.
The composition and size of the ensemble varies according to concert programmes.
