The Belgian baroque violinist, violoncello da spalla player, and conductor Sigiswald Kuijken was born in 1944 near Brussels. His way of playing early music makes the continuing modern-style performances of many works seem, at least to my ears, completely irrelevant.When I reached out to Kuijken to ask if he’d like to be interviewed, he wrote back that he’d be happy to speak, and “I don’t have a cell phone, as hard to believe as that may seem.” He shares an email address with his wife, Marleen Kuijken-Thiers, a violist who performs in his early music ensemble La Petite Bande and with the Kuijken String Quartet. As he talked, he spoke passionately and seriously about several subjects, but had a way of finishing a thought, pausing briefly, then laughing nervously—a disarming punctuation to some very honest words.
Moderate Anarchy
An Interview with Sigiswald Kuijken
