Giovanna Barbati
Giovanna Barbati is a cellist and viola da gamba player, specializing in baroque music. She frequently appears as a soloist, plays her own music and improvisations, and has given the first performances of several works for solo cello.
For many years, she was the principal cellist and viola da gamba player of Academia Montis Regalis, with which she performed as a soloist in 2014, also in Paris, London, and St. Petersburg. As principal cellist, she also played with the Innsbrucker Festwochen Orchestra, Teatro Regio in Turin, Accademia Bizantina, Les Talens Lyriques, Il Complesso Barocco, la Real Compañía de Ópera de Cámara, L’Arte del Mondo, and Camerata Bern. At the viola da gamba, she played continuo in various operas (including Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice; La Stellidaura vendicante by Provenzale at the Tyrolerlandestheater in Innsbruck, Theater an der Wien, and Hans Otto Theater in Potsdam; L’Orfeo by Monteverdi at the Bern Stadttheater) and in J. S. Bach’s Sixth Brandenburg Concert with Andras Schiff and Cappella Barca.
Professor of viola da gamba in the Conservatory ‘A. Casella, L’Aquila: she also teaches baroque cello and historical improvisation there. She researches the historical practice and teaching of improvisation on the cello and viola da gamba; she has been invited to hold lectures and workshops at the Conservatoire de Paris, MDW Wien, Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Musikhochschule Bern, Mozarteum in Salzburg, University of Oregon, Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, and Conservatorio Verdi di Milano.
Among her published articles there are: ‘I passagagli per violoncello di Gaetano Francone: una scuola di diminuzione virtuosistica napoletana a fine Seicento’ in: Marchitelli, Mascitti e la musica strumentale napoletana tra Sei e Settecento (LIM 2023); ‘The Partimenti of Rocco Greco: Reconstructing the Pedagogical Tradition for the Early Violoncello’, in: Basso Continuo in Italy, Sources, Pedagogy and Performance, (together with Catherine Bahn, Brepols 2023); ‘Le Sonate di Antonio Guida: una nuova fonte napoletana per la didattica del violoncello’ (together with Guido Olivieri, Studi musicali 2021); ‘Il n’exécute jamais la Basse telle qu’elle est écrite. The use of improvisation in teaching low strings in Musical Improvisation in the Baroque Era, Brepols, 2019. Her critical editions include Antonio Caldara’s 44 Lezioni per il violoncello (Musedita 2024); Gaetano Francone’s Passagagli (HH 2021) and Antonio Guida’s Metodo per violoncello (Sedm 2021). She prepared together with Alessandro De Marchi the critical editions of the operas Merope by Riccardo Broschi and Idalma by Bernardo Pasquini for the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik (2019, 2021).
She has recently recorded ‘Le virtuose fatiche’, the complete works for cello by Francesco Supriani (Les amies Partimentistes, Da Vinci). She took part in numerous CD recordings, winning many awards and receiving rapturous personal praise from critics. She plays a 1751 Ambroise De Comble cello and a 2012 viola da gamba by Pierre Bohr.
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