Les Muffatti

When the group began to realize that its potential as a steady ensemble was growing quickly, and each member had specialized in Baroque strings, they decided, by the end of 2003, to present Les Muffatti to the public and give it a more official character.

The name Les Muffatti reflects not only what the ensemble considers to be its basic repertoire, but also its approach to performance practice.

Georg Muffat (1653-1704), a cosmopolitan composer, is a key historical figure in the creation of the string orchestra, and one of the first authors to have clearly mapped out the main differences between French and Italian musical styles around 1700.

Future plans include focusing on Italian oratorios, serenatas, and intermezzi by Alessandro Scarlatti, Giovanni Bononcini, Antonio Caldara, Johann Adolph Hasse, and others; these are all compositions for string orchestra with an extended continuo section, a few vocal soloists, and the occasional wind instrument.

For these two types of repertoire, the ensemble attempts to present to the listener as many scores as possible, the original materials of which are preserved in Belgian music libraries.