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Scaramuccia

Scaramuccia is a Commedia dell’Arte character dated from the beginning of the 18th century who was always involved in fights and difficult situations. He is an evolution of a previous character called Capitano, a soldier who carried a sword. Scaramuccia changed the sword for a guitar, an instrument that he apparently used to solve complicated situations.

Scaramuccia is also a piece by the Neapolitan violinist and composer Nicola Matteis.

This piece by Matteis was one of the first pieces of music that we, Scaramuccia, played together, back in 2013. Since then, our devotion to Italian baroque music has only grown, and that baroque metaphor about settling conflicts with the art instead of confrontation, even if it is somewhat naive, it still seems fascinating and necessary to us.

About us

Scaramuccia we are Javier Lupiáñez on the baroque violin, Inés Salinas on the baroque cello and Patrícia Vintém on the harpsichord. We research and perform European instrumental repertoire from the early 18th century and we are always in the pursuit of a historically informed performance. We like to travel to places to play concerts and have people listen to us who haven’t heard us before (or yes, and so that listen to us again), and take the opportunity to discover new places and eat their typical food. We have played more than seventy concerts together, in countries such as Holland, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia. This has allowed us to confirm that there are cool and lovely people everywhere who enjoy listening to baroque music, and we have visited beautiful places and almost always eaten very well. But we know that there are many more people with whom we can share what we do, and for this we need the artistic directors of the festivals to invite us to play. That’s why we made this page, so you know what we do, why we’re cool and decide to call us.

We are motivated by a constant curiosity about the past, to discover the rhetoric and emotions hidden behind the music we play and understand how to transmit them to the people who listen to our concerts and our albums.

Since our beginnings we have a firm commitment to unearth unpublished music, avoiding the more conventional repertoire (although we like Bach and many very famous composers, and how some colleagues we admire play them, but we are not focusing on that for now). This has led us not only to play anonymous music or music by truly unknown authors, but also to the honour of performing modern-time premieres of works by composers such as Vivaldi and Pisendel, thanks to the identification work of our violinist Javier Lupiáñez on works that to date they were considered anonymous.

There are two more things that drive us crazy: baroque ornamentation and the performance of the basso continuo. They seem to us to be two fundamental pillars of baroque music, and working with a stable team for years has given us the possibility of deepening and experimenting in both aspects, which we believe allows us to better understand the music we play and transmit it to the public in a more unique, fresh and personal way.

In addition to having the privilege of making the music we like and from time to time playing it for an audience, we have obtained a couple of recognitions that make us especially proud: in 2016 we won the audience prize at the Göttinger Reihe Historischer Musik International Competition for a concert in which we played Handel and Jimi Hendrix, and in 2022 we were nominated for the REMA European Early Music Awards in the “Heritage and Repertoire” category for our project “The Cabinet II Project”. We didn’t win, but we were grateful for the recognition of the enormous amount of time and dedication we put to make available unpublished repertoire through recordings, concerts, theses, music editions, articles, and conferences without having any kind of public funding.

In 2018 we decided to create our own record label, Snakewood Editions, with which we release our own recordings, as well as those of other artists with whom we share our vision. Maybe it’s a bit terrible to say it ourselves, but our albums are turning out very nice. The covers are very cool, the booklets too, and they are very well documented, and we pay a lot of attention to the recording technique and the mastering process, trying to show the peculiarities of the timbre of our historical instruments. In addition, they have received very nice reviews and have been nominated several times for the ICMA, Opus Klassik and MIN awards. You can take a look at our albums here.

For a more coventional biography of Scaramuccia, please click here.

Artists

 

Javier Lupiáñez

Violin and direction

the firmly eloquent violin of Javier Lupiáñez” GRAMOPHONE, March 2012

 

“Francisco Javier Lupiáñez possède un jeu diabolique, quelque part entre Paganini et Méphistophélès. Son archet déploie tous les motifs de la séduction: rubatos enjôleurs, glissandos imperceptibles, rythmes ensorceleurs… Ces audaces esthétiques s’appuient sur une technique impeccable” Pierre-Carl Langlais, Qbuz

 

“le violon virtuose et goûteux de Francisco Javier Lupiañez”, ODB-Opéra

 

After studying hard and going to many classes, Javier treasures a large number of papers: Advanced Diploma in Music for the modern violin at the Superior Conservatory of Salamanca, baroque violin bachelor and master’s degree (with distinction) under the tutelage of Enrico Gatti at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, Master’s degree in musicology from the University of Salamanca and doctorate in musicology (laureate) from the University of Guanajuato.

As a performer he has won some awards such as the Internationaal van Wassenaer Concours or the Göttinger Reihe Historischer Musik, in 2021 he is nominated for best performer of the year and revelation artist of the year at the Opus Klassik awards. His recordings have been nominated several times for the ICMA and the Opus Klassik and have received several critical awards from the international press.

He has performed as a soloist in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Lithuania, Germany, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Belgium, The Netherlands, Slovenia, Czech Republic… well, almost in all Europe and in Japan and United States, and has recorded for Harmonia Mundi, Ayros, Snakewood Editions, France Musique, Musiqu3, among others. Javier has very good memories of concerts with figures such as Frans Brüggen, Sigiswald Kuijken, Amandine Beyer, Olivia Centurioni, Enrico Onofri, Enrico Gatti, Emilio Moreno, Peter Van Heyghen, Francois Fernandez, Dmitry Sinkovsky, Johannes Pramsohler, Inés Salinas, and many others other wonderful musicians.

As a researcher he specializes in 18th century ornamentation and instrumental improvisation; his doctoral thesis on Vivaldi, Pisendel and ornamentation will soon be published by the Vivaldian Institute in Venice.

He has written articles on the subject in various international publications such as Studi Vivaldiani, Brepols, Quodlibet, RISM online, Journal of the National Early Music Association or Early Music Performer. He has given lectures and master classes on the subject at the Mozarteum (Austria), Conservatorio Superior de Vigo (Spain), Conservatorio Statale di Musica de Cagliari (Italy), Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini (Italy), Haliciana Schola Cantorum de Lviv ( Ukraine), among others.

In addition, his investigative work has led to the identification of works by Westhoff, Leclair, Lonati and Corelli, as well as the discovery of new works by Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Pisendel.

Javier plays a violin made in 1683 by Cornelis Kleynman, on loan from The Dutch Musical Instruments Foundation.

He is co-founder of the recording label and publishing house Snakewood Editions.

www.javierlupianez.com

 

Inés Salinas

Violoncello and viola da gamba

Inés specialises in the historically informed performance practice of the cello and viola da gamba. She is a founder, member and manager of the chamber music ensemble Scaramuccia as well as a co-founder of the recording label and publishing house Snakewood Editions. She collaborates with several European orchestras and ensembles, and teaches cello privately. She currently lives in The Hague (The Netherlands).

Born in 1985 in Zaragoza (SP), Inés holds Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from The Royal Conservatory of The Hague (NL), where she studied under the guidance of Jaap ter Linden and Lucia Swarts (historical cello) and Mieneke van der Velden (viola da gamba). She has received further advice from inspiring musicians such us Gaetano Nasillo, Hidemi Suzuki, Wieland Kuijken, Christophe Coin, Bruno Cocset, Itziar Atutxa, Rainer Zipperling, Balázs Maté, Enrico Gatti, Olivia Centurioni and Enrico Onofri. 

Inés also obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in classical cello at CSMA (Zaragoza, SP), where she studied with Ángel Luis Quintana, Cuarteto Casals and Cuarteto Quiroga, among others.

She is particularly fond of Italian (especially Neapolitan) music of the High Baroque period. She devoted her Master’s research to the Neapolitan cello repertoire at the turn of the 18th century, a field which she continues to research, unearthing and performing an amazing repertoire that is not yet widely known and appreciated.

Inés has performed with the Britten-Pears Baroque Orchestra (UK) in a project conducted by Christophe Rousset, Orquesta Barroca Conde Duque (SP) conducted by Ángel Sampedro, as well as I Giovani della Montis Regalis 2013  (IT) conducted by Olivia Centurioni, Alessandro de Marchi and Enrico Onofri.

She has performed live for Dutch radio stations Radio 4 and Concertzender and has recorded for the labels Naïve, Ayros and Snakewood Editions.

She plays on a baroque cello made by André Mehler in 2019 after Alessandro Gagliano, Napoli 1704, a viola da gamba made by Matthew Farley in 2017 after Michel Collichon, Paris 1683, and bows by Jerôme Gastaldo and Antonino Airenti.

https://inessalinas.eu/

 

Patrícia Vintém

Harpsichord

Patrícia Vintém, a Portuguese harpsichordist, acknowledged her passion for music at a very young age in her hometown, Viana do Castelo, where she began her violin and harpsichord studies.

In 2009 she obtained a Bachelor’s degree in harpsichord at the Escola Superior de Música in Lisbon in the class of Ana Mafalda Castro. Her desire to cross borders and seek knowledge and experience in the field of Early Music brought her to The Netherlands to study harpsichord, where she obtained a Bachelor’s degree under the guidance of Jacques Ogg (2013) and a Master’s degree with Fabio Bonizzoni (2015).

During her studies she had the opportunity to share the stage with many renowned artists such as Amandine Beyer, Enrico Gatti, Fabio Bonizzoni or Kati Debretzeni.

Since 2009, Patrícia has been a founding member of Les Esprits Animaux. The ensemble has been warmly acclaimed by audiences and critics, awarded with the 1st prize at the Van Wassenaer Competition (2016, The Netherlands), and recorded three CD albums published by the labels of Ambronay and Musica Ficta.

In 2014, she became a member of Scaramuccia – an ensemble with which she recorded several CDs, all devoted to re-discovering unknown or forgotten Baroque repertoire. Together with the core members of Scaramuccia, she founded an independent recording label and publishing house: Snakewood Editions.

Patrícia has recorded for such radio stations as France Musique, Radio Klara, Concertzender Nederlands and Musiq3. 

As a soloist and continuo player, she regularly performs in several venues in her home country, as well as in other countries such as Spain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Lithuania and Japan. 

She is also actively engaged in music education and is currently pursuing a Master’s of Arts degree in Music Therapy at the Codarts University for the Arts in Rotterdam.

www.patriciavintem.nl

Programs

Our concert programmes are well designed in terms of the choice of repertoire; we also take great care of the historical and rhetorical aspects of the music we perform.

Presentation of the pieces and interaction with the Audience are crucial for us. We want the Listener to listen actively in order to become part of the Musical Act itself. We understand the performance as a journey through emotions, entailing everything from the first to the last note.

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Support

The aim of Scaramuccia is to rediscover unknown music from the past, which definitely deserves it. We are conducting thorough research and planning new, exciting projects, which will need financial support. You can become part of all of this through making a contribution. Regardless how big or small, it will be greatly appreciated!

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Our Label and Publishing House: Snakewood Editions