Joachim Held

Joachim Held - Erfreuliche Lautenlust - Delightful Lute-Pleasure

Barocke Lautenmusik aus Habsburgischen Landen

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In the early 1700s, throughout the German-speaking Habsburg lands of the Holy Roman Empire, the lute gradually gained a
new lease of life and was brought to its highest level of development. The new generation of German virtuosos began to
build a new tradition of their own - adding new elements derived from Italian opera and local popular traditions which produced a new hybrid style of lute music with its own definite character. The result was that the lute became immensely popular once again; one writer said in 1701 that there were so many lutes in Prague that one might roof a house with them.
Joachim Held has selected a program of works from a manuscript compiled by the priest and Lute virtuoso, Ferdinand Fischer,
housed in the famed archives of the Benedictine monastery of Kremsmünster, near Salzburg. This is a fascinating and
beautiful program of works – highly representative of the tuneful, yet polyphonically accomplished lute revival of the German
High Baroque.
Joachim Held (Lute). Born in 1963 in Hamburg, Joachim Held received his musical training at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis
with Eugen Dombois and Hopkinson Smith. In 1988 he finished his studies by attaining a Diploma for Early Music. From 1988
to 1990 he studied with Jürgen Hübscher at the College of Music in Karlsruhe and passed the Artistic Final Examination there.
In 1990 Joachim Held won second prize at the Concours Musica Antiqua at the Flanders Festival in Bruges. He held a teaching
post for lute from 1990 to 1997 at the Music College in Heidelberg-Mannheim. He teaches at the Conservatory in Hamburg
since 1997. Joachim Held plays regularly under the direction of Nikolaus Harnoncourt and works together on a regular basis
with Giardino Armanico (Milan).