Collegio per Sonare

What's it about?

The Collegio per Sonare ensemble, consisting of musicians from the Upper Carinthian region, has set itself the task of re-invigorating the centuries-old tradition of courtly wind music. This tradition, which has various roots and is itself one of the roots of the modern wind orchestra, is based on the need for representation at the princely courts of the age of absolutism in the late 19th century. Emperor Josef II, for example, reduced the huge baroque court orchestra that his mother Empress Maria Theresa had left him and initiated a Harmoniemusik, for which almost all the great composers of the time contributed works (e.g. the famous Gran Partita by W.A. Mozart) and for which many opera excerpts were also arranged for the purpose of open-air performances.