Rachel Podger, Baroque violinist, is known for her highly accurate, virtuosic playing, outstanding musicianship and understanding of period style, and a cheerful, warm and decidedly non-stuffy stage presence.
Her father was British and her mother German. She was educated in Germany at a Rudolf Steiner school and studied violin. When she returned to England she continued violin studies with David Perry, then was admitted to the GuildhallRead more School of Music and Drama with Pauline Scott and David Takeno as her teachers. She asked to be allowed to study Baroque violin as well as the standard violin with modern set-up, but was told the only Baroque fiddle was already given out to another student. In addition, as she says, "It wasn't really the thing to do in your first year. You were supposed to establish your technique."
Rachel did not let this stop her. "So I got hold of an instrument and did it anyway." She surreptitiously took Baroque violin lessons with Micaela Coberti at the Guildhall.and often visited Cambridge where her brother, the singer Julian Podger, had founded a small ensemble called Trinity Baroque and gave her a chance to play some of the central Baroque repertory. From her second year on she continued to study with Coberti, "legally, as it were," she says. Her attraction to the Baroque instrument, she says, is the sonority of the gut strings, but she also says that the lighter, curved bow, which requires one to lift the bow and strike the strings, is more sensitive and more quickly exposes tiredness or stiffness, which is also true of the left hand fingering, typically played without vibrato.
At some point she realized she wanted to be a soloist, that she did not want to be part of a group of violinists in an orchestra (at least not on a back bench), an experience she was frequently encountering even while still at Guildhall as the word got out about her talents and skills.
With three friends, she started playing chamber music regularly and had unexpected success. "We didn't realize we were a group until we won a competition" she says of the group, which is called the Palladium Ensemble. It is a group with a unique sound since its bass part is played not by a harpsichord and cello, but by viola da gamba (Susanne Henrich is the gambist) or by one of a number of directly plucked instruments such as guitar, theorbo, or archlute, by William Carter. This gives the group a distinctive, oddly folk or country music sound. Palladium records on the Linn Records label of Scotland. In addition, she was one of the original members of Florilegium, a larger chamber ensemble specializing in seventeenth- to early nineteenth-century music.
Palladium and Podger as a soloist soon appeared on major stages in Europe. In 1996, Palladium Ensemble was a headliner in the prestigious international concert series Rising Stars, winning a standing ovation when it appeared in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Since then it has appeared in many European cities and festival sites, as well as in North and South America. It also frequently gives radio concerts.
In 1997, Podger was appointed Concertmaster (or "Leader") of The English Concert, one of London's leading period instruments orchestras, and played solo with it on many stops on its tour of Eastern Asia. She has a solo recording of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas on the Channel Classics label.
Rachel Podger plays a 1739 instrument made by the Genoese luthier Pesarinius. Read less
Composer:
Antonio Vivaldi,
Giuseppe Tartini,
Francesco Maria Veracini,
Johann Georg Pisendel
Performer:
Rachel Podger
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Brecon Baroque
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Label: Channel Classics
Catalog: 6212
Release Date: 10/09/2012
Number of Discs: 2
Composer:
Antonio Vivaldi,
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
Johann Sebastian Bach,
Franz Joseph Haydn
...
Performer:
Rachel Podger,
Gary Cooper,
Jane Rogers,
Trevor Pinnock
...
Conductor:
Pavlo Beznosiuk
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Arte Dei Suonatori,
Holland Baroque Society,
Brecon Baroque
...
Label: Archiv Produktion (Dg)
Catalog: 001719702
Release Date: 09/25/2012
Number of Discs: 50
Composer:
Johann Sebastian Bach,
George Frideric Handel,
Domenico Scarlatti,
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
...
Performer:
Peter Harvey,
Stephen Varcoe,
Anthony Rolfe Johnson,
Michael Chance
...
Conductor:
John Eliot Gardiner,
Paul McCreesh,
Marc Minkowski,
Trevor Pinnock
...
Orchestra/Ensemble:
English Baroque Soloists,
Monteverdi Choir,
Gabrieli Consort
...
Label: L'oiseau Lyre
Catalog: 440675
Release Date: 03/17/2009
Number of Discs: 2
Composer:
Johann Sebastian Bach
Performer:
David Roblou,
Daniel Yeadon,
David Watkin,
Richard Tunnicliffe
...
Conductor:
Philip Pickett
Orchestra/Ensemble:
New London Consort
Label: Deutsche Harmonia Mundi
Catalog: 77516
Release Date: 02/06/2008
Number of Discs: 1
Composer:
Robert Johnson,
Anonymous,
John Playford,
Giles Farnaby
...
Performer:
Michael Metzler,
Lee Santana,
Steve Player,
Andrew Lawrence-King
...
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Label: Archiv Produktion (Dg)
Catalog: 437833
Release Date: 10/24/2007
Number of Discs: 1
Composer:
Josquin Des Préz,
Anonymous,
Girolamo Frescobaldi,
Giovanni Palestrina
...
Performer:
Timothy Roberts,
Paula Chateauneuf,
Hannelore Devaere,
Jeremy West
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Conductor:
Paul McCreesh
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Gabrieli Consort,
Gabrieli Players
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