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The formation of the new Vocal Ensemble Stimmung in 2016 owes much to Dominique Vasseur’s constant passion for vocal art and musical rhetoric as a musician, a composer and a teacher.
The personal experience of each of the professional singers making up Stimmung merges into a challenging balance. Their number varies according to the repertoire and the historical background and can be supplemented by one or more musicians. The objective of the ensemble is to combine a historically documented approach of early music with a continuing commitment to twentieth and twenty-first century music. It particularly values deliberate sensitive dialogues between works from the past and present. Dominique Vasseur’s artistic direction and programming reflect his musical ideal. His choices are guided by his demanding curiosity for all aspects of prosody (relation between text and music). Although Stimmung quite naturally focuses on choral music (3 or 4 singers per section) lighter programmes or projects for smaller venues can be tailored to needs or wishes. While sometimes mixing different eras or styles, our performances always enhance singing and vocalism and all their variations. Translation / André Calmein |
The German word Stimmung is considered to be untranslatable into French or English. It is both etymologically and metaphorically related to music as it is derived from Stimme, the voice.
It could be described as a mood, or more accurately as the acoustics of the soul.
The concept was developed by German Romanticists.
For example, Novalis wrote: “Whatever does not appeal to me does not arouse any consonance (Stimmung)
or even generates a certain dissonance (Verstimmung) deep inside of me.
I prefer to turn away from it without a word.”
A unifying vital principle of emotions and sensations, stimmung expresses a form of resonance between the self and the world.
It could be described as a mood, or more accurately as the acoustics of the soul.
The concept was developed by German Romanticists.
For example, Novalis wrote: “Whatever does not appeal to me does not arouse any consonance (Stimmung)
or even generates a certain dissonance (Verstimmung) deep inside of me.
I prefer to turn away from it without a word.”
A unifying vital principle of emotions and sensations, stimmung expresses a form of resonance between the self and the world.
