Till the viol ended together with the aristocracy under the scaffold, it was the instrument par excellence of the French monarchs and princes, being even allowed access to their most private chambers. For the noble concerts its “voice of an ambassador” was preferred to the pretentious loud cello, as Hubert le Blanc puts it in his “defense of the viol” in 1740. When the aesthetics started to change, a battle between the two began, which was also a battle between quality – the rich resonant sound of the viol – and quantity – the cello with its big tone favoured for public concerts in large halls. While fighting, they both started to sing together, showing their different characters. In a short moment of peace beautiful works for the two enemies were written that were discovered only few years ago and will be heard in this program.

‘Enemies in love’ shows an innocent struggle for victory which in the end led to a short romance. Our journey starts with presenting noble pieces for the viol with works by Marin Marais, Antoine Forqueray, Tobias Hume and Karl Friedrich Abel, shifting to the works for cello by Domenico Gabrielli, Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach and finally reuniting both in the Sonatas by Andreas Lidl and Joseph Zyka.