Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik – Senza basso 2022

Senza basso, composing without a basso continuo in the Baroque period, is actually a contradiction in terms. And yet the 17th and early 18th centuries produced a series of compositions that elevate this contradiction to a programme. In her impressive interpretations of these special works by Westhoff, Biber and Vilsmayr, the Bulgarian violinist Plamena Nikitassova, who lives in Switzerland, makes use of a historical playing technique that is hardly cultivated any more, even among baroque violinists: the so-called "low posture", in which the instrument is not placed on the shoulder and, if necessary, held with the chin, but is placed against the left breast.