Historically Informed Performance (Traverso)

My teaching approaches historically informed performance as a practical musicianship grounded in sources, style, and embodied playing.
Rather than treating historical practice as a fixed aesthetic, I work with it as a set of tools that sharpen musical intention, clarity, and expressivity.

Affect and rhetoric

In the eighteenth-century, affect functioned as an organising principle shared by music, rhetoric, and theatre. Musical parameters — articulation, timing, dynamics, ornamentation — are shaped to convey character and emotion. Drawing on historical treatises and my work with theatrical practices (I’m a member of the Dutch Historical Acting Collective, DHAC), I help students translate these ideas into concrete musical decisions.

Cadence, dance, and embodied pulse

Cadence is what gives music its sense of movement and danceability. It is not only a formal event, but a continuous quality: the ability to feel weight, release, and direction within the bar and across phrases. Developing this sense transforms phrasing, articulation, and tempo, and leads to playing that feels physically grounded and rhythmically alive.

Ornamentation as living practice

We focus in particular on ornamentation, distinguishing between French, Italian, and German practices across the eighteenth century, and adapting them to repertoire, instrument, and context. Depending on the student’s needs, we also work on articulation, hierarchy and metre, microdynamics, basso continuo awareness, temperament, and improvisation (preludes and cadenzas).

Listening through the body

Sound production, articulation, and phrasing are addressed in relation to breath, posture, and movement, allowing technique and expression to support one another rather than compete.

Who these lessons are for

• traverso players of any level,
• modern flutists curious about the traverso, who wish to step into the world of historical flutes in an open and exploratory way
• modern flutists with an interest in Baroque, Classical, and early Romantic repertoire, seeking to deepen their understanding of style, rhetoric, and ornamentation,
• musicians preparing entrance exams for Bachelor or Master degrees in Traverso,
• other instrumentalists interested in historically informed principles that can be applied beyond the flute.

If you have any questions or want to book an online trial lesson, send me a message!

Testimonials

“Highly recommended. I am very grateful for his teaching style. Gaspar has not only given me technical, stylistic, and aesthetic tools, but has also encouraged me to question how I relate to music myself, offering concrete ways to carry my own vision forward, with particular attention to affect.”
— Lucía, modern flutist and traverso player

Prices

Trial lesson: €40
Single lesson: €50
5-lesson package: €225

Lessons are generally 1 hour long. If you would prefer longer sessions, please get in touch to agree on a price.