Matilde Tosetti

I am a violinist based in Milan (IT), I usually play in orchestras, chamber music ensemble or as soloist all over Europe and I find the time for another great passion that is teaching and preparing students for auditions and exams. During the last years I focused also in the historical informed performance on original instruments so I have studied on ancient treatises and fac-simile scores, that brought me to specialize in European baroque music from the 1600, such as Biber, Bach, Marini going through Corelli, Vivaldi, Handel, Couperin, Charpentier, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Verdi, to the 1900 with Strauss on historical instruments with gut strings, several different sized and shaped bows, at 415Hz, 430Hz, 440Hz or even more.

I have performed with some of the most important baroque ensemble such as Europa Galante, I Barocchisti, Teatro alla Scala on historical instruments, European Union Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Zefiro, Anima Eterna Brugge and others in the most notable European concert halls for example in Milan, Rome, Palermo, Florence, Venice, Paris, Versailles, London, Warsaw, Geneva, Basel, Zurich, Bremen, Frankfurt, Utrecht, Antwerpen, Bruges, Lisbon, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Barcelona, but also in Asia in Shanghai, Tokyo.

I recorded with many ensembles and orchestras several CDs for different record companies such as Glossa, Arcana Outhere, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Amadeus, France Music, Sony and others.

I was a student of Carlo Chiarappa, Enzo Porta, and in the baroque area of Andrea Rognoni, Enrico Gatti. I obtained the Master of Arts in Music Performance in Lugano (Switzerland) and the Master of Baroque Music in Verona (Italy) besides others previous degrees; I followed many Masterclasses and won several orchestral auditions before focusing on chamber baroque music.

I had the opportunity to be the student of very important pedagogists who wrote books and treatises about teaching methods so I picked up lots of "little secrets" for example sometimes you need to see the problem from a different perspective to solve it. I like to work a lot on the bow, intonation and rhythm but also on the posture, the breath and how to relax, concentrate and tackle the stress for the performance. 

If we want to approach the Baroque style I deeply believe that we need to read the manuscript or the first edition of the piece in order to understand the real intent of the composer and also because we need to get rid of the modern editors' choices (bowings, slurs, articulations, fingerings, dynamics) because in the baroque period many things were open, not written and there is a huge freedom of improvisation.