The most imaginative, rule-breaking, and lively form of expression of its time. Like a written improvisation, Concerto Copenhagen will bring the music to life as if it were composed yesterday and performed for the first time today.

Lars Ulrik Mortensen calls stylus phantasticus “a kind of speech in music” and emphasizes that this music must be played “so that it can surprise or shock and take the audience on a journey,” and that its performance must and should “go right to the edge – and at times beyond.” The evening’s program provides such lavish examples of the free imagination of the time that it gives the concept of “Baroque music” entirely new dimensions.

The fanciful style, or in Latin "stylus phantasticus," emerged in Italy in the late 16th century, often in virtuoso solo pieces for keyboard instruments called "toccata" or "stravaganza," and culminated with the North German organ school and Dietrich Buxtehude around 1700. In essence, it was the most unruly and wildly growing form of expression of its time – whims, inventions, fancies, and caprices can alternate unpredictably – as if it were a written improvisation. Theorists of the time described the style as bound by neither melody, text, time signature, nor tempo; it can jump freely from idea to idea, giving a brilliant composer or musician the greatest possible scope to titillate the listener's passions!

The concept of "Stylus phantasticus" may have disappeared with the Baroque period, but the free, playful musical form did not disappear. It found new paths and expressions in composers such as Mozart and Beethoven, both of whom were formidable improvisers, and not least in even later composers such as Chopin, Liszt, and Paganini. And finding the balance between spontaneous musical ideas and carefully conceived, complex progressions and forms has been a constant source of frustration and inspiration for composers throughout the ages.

Concerto Copenhagen will bring the music of this era to life, as if it were written yesterday and performed for the first time today.

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