Johanna Rose, a Nonconformist Gambist

From her home in Seville, German gambist Johanna Rose is forging a singular artistic path. Trained in Basel, Milan, and Lugano, and now based in Andalusia with Accademia del Piacere, she belongs to a new generation of performers who reject aesthetic boundaries. Equally at home in the refined world of Marin Marais and Antoine Forqueray, at the heart of her latest CD, Visions du Diable (“Visions of the Devil”), and in a multimedia project that flirts with Gregorian chant, improvisation, and even the sounds of heavy metal, she embraces a deeply embodied approach to the viola da gamba. For her, early music is neither a museum piece nor a stylistic exercise: it is a living, sensual medium, infused with energy and freedom. This is the portrait of an artist who dares to push the boundaries of her instrument, both musically and mentally.

A young blonde woman gazes intently into the camera. She is wearing a dark pink dress, somewhere between a dress and a dressing gown, with her right leg exposed, resting against a dark brown six-string viola da gamba.

The cover photograph of Johanna Rose’s latest CD immediately makes one thing clear: this musician leaves nothing to chance. She presents herself in a deliberately, slightly provocative manner, charged with eroticism, while maintaining exacting aesthetic standards. “It’s not my viola da gamba,” she explains, “it wouldn’t have matched the dress.” The photograph was taken in the empty swimming pool of a country house near Seville, with a few autumn leaves scattered across the ground and, behind Johanna Rose, the pale blue wall of the pool. “It was already quite late when we took the picture, the light was very subdued, the atmosphere had something slightly diabolical about it, and that suited the title Visions du Diable perfectly.”

Not only is the photograph deeply personal, but so too is the choice of works: suites by Marin Marais (1656–1728) and Antoine Forqueray (1672–1744), both of whom were active at the court of Versailles under Louis XIV. “Eroticism absolutely has its place in that period,” believes the young musician, who therefore has no issue whatsoever with her cover photograph. It was the golden age of the viola da gamba, and nowhere else would it ever enjoy such triumphs as it did in the salons of the Sun King. Marais and Forqueray: these are the composers Johanna Rose turned to, choosing the star virtuosos of this aristocratic string instrument, two composers who are supposedly very different. One, Marais, wrote music of serene, elegant, and graceful beauty; the other, a kind of rock star of his time, was a daring improviser, wild and impetuous. Johanna Rose breaks down these clichés, approaching both composers with expressive energy and evocative warmth, according to each work and its artistic message. Her incisive, emotionally charged style of interpretation is unmistakable. Every note is an expression, alive and physical; her playing is elegant and highly virtuosic, while her conception of sound is nuanced and sensitive. “Les Voix humaines,” the closing piece on her CD—one of those voices is unmistakably Johanna Rose’s viola da gamba, breathing, shaping its phrases, and telling its story.

“Sometimes you have to push the limits of the viola da gamba and draw more from it than that simple nasal sound,” Johanna Rose says confidently, never hesitating to use a heavier bow or to increase the tension of her strings. A luthier adjusts her instruments according to her wishes. Like every gambist, she owns an entire collection of them at home in Seville. Her favourite is the bass viola da gamba, followed by the tenor viola da gamba.

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