Les Basses Réunies & Bruno Cocset
Biographie Les Basses Réunies & Bruno Cocset
Les Basses Réunies
The ensemble Les Basses Réunies was founded in 1996 with the precise aim of playing the repertoire for the low-voiced string instruments – solos, sonatas, concertos. After years comparing, exchanging and working together with different groupings – Il Seminario musicale, Hesperion XXI, Mosaïques, Les Arts Florissant, and others, Bruno Cocset had built up a team inspired by the idea of establishing an identify for the sound, at the same time exploring the repertoire and the possible combinations of instruments; they wanted to bring to life the narration and eloquence of the music, its clever construction, “grain” and color, and exalt its sound.
The lute-maker Charles Riché has collaborated with the group for more than 15 years on this search for an organic link between the instrument, musician and composer, and this has produced ten instruments: cellos, viol da gamba bass, tenor, “bastard” alto, and a viola, creating an 18th century consort of viols, with – a recent addition – a lyre viol.
Les Basses Réunies have a long list of recordings that have attracted the attention of the musical press. These include the Alpha recording of the Sonatas for cello and basso continuo by Vivaldi, Barrière, and Geminiani; Boccherini’s Sonatas and Concertos, Frescobaldi’s Canzoni, and Bach’s Sonatas for viola. The agOgique label has issued Domenico Gabrielli’s La Nascita del Violoncello, Henry Purcell’s Fantasias, Dall’Abaco father & son’s Caprices & sonates and Vivaldi’s Cello Concertos. Shortly Alpha will be offering a book-Cd, Cello stories, a musical trip through two centuries of cello music, and an album dedicated to Tobias Hume in collaboration with the viola da gamba player Guido Balestracci.
In these years, Bruno Cocset with Les Basses Réunies have performed in most of the important French festivals: Angers, Nantes, Beauvais, Perpignan, Saintes, Sablé sur Sarthe, Bordeaux, Lyon, Dijob, Ambronay, Dunkirk, Nancy, Paris, Bourges, Vannes, Vézelay, their engagements have also taken them to Brussels, Geneva, Zurich, Barcelona, Salamanca, Zaragoza, Peniscola, Seville, Vitoria, St Petersburg, Moscow, Norilsk, Nizhny, Perm, Ekaterinburg, Prague, Cesky-Krumlov, Bucarest, Timisoara, Lisbon, Québec, Luxemburg, Utrecht, Baarn and other well-known music spots.
