Wernicke

Germany's Konrad Junghänel identifies himself primarily as a lutenist, and it was in that capacity that he first became known for sheer virtuosity combined with mastery of style and ornamentation technique. His lute repertory, centered on the German Baroque standards of Silvius Leopold Weiss (whose complete works he has recorded to critical and prize-committee acclaim) and J.S. Bach, numbers some 100 pieces, and he has served as soloist or as part of the continuo group (on various stringed instruments, including theorbo) with top-level historical-performance groups such as La Petite Bande and Les Arts Florissants, as well as his hometown Musica Antiqua Köln.

Satire is a funny game. Offenbach’s parody of Napoleonic society and its social injustices uses figures from Classical mythology to render the comedy and comment at one remove, a trick pioneered by Aristophanes and used frequently during the intervening space of (approximately) 2368 years. Orphée’s success led Napoleon himself to order a Command Performance of the piece 18 months later, which is rather like The Queen inviting the Sex Pistols to a Royal Variety Show…

Peter Quantrill