SUITE FOR FOUR (world premiere)
Oliver Schneller, 1999

baroque cello - Phoebe Carrai, flute - Sally Schlichting, oboe - Jan Coldwell, trumpet - Rick Trostel

Formalism, costume, artifice, illusion - attributes of the Baroque that entered its music in various manifestations. Under the pronounced formalism in Baroque conversation and manners the most insignificant things gained great, often pompous importance.

The idea of Suite for Four is not to invoke the spirit of musical form models of the Baroque with contemporary means, not to revisit its stylistic idioms. It is more a play on the "Baroquish" with what I perceive to be certain Baroque characteristics, for example masking, exaggeration, excessive ornamentation, sentimentality, affect . . . all this with complete disregard for authenticity.