Baroque Violinist Johannes Pramsohler Receives Doctorate from the Royal Academy of Music

Pramsohler has shed new light on the earliest trio sonatas in France and England, as well as produced multiple world premiere recordings

Italian-born Baroque violinist Johannes Pramsohler, who for five years has been investigating the style and performance practice of the early trio sonata, has received his doctorate from London's Royal Academy of Music.

During the course of the research, Pramsohler also released two albums of repertoire on his own label, Audax. The discs, titled The London Album and The Paris Album, feature Ensemble Diderot, the period-performance group founded by Pramsohler in 2008.

Both albums contain world premiere recordings of previously unknown trio sonatas and demonstrate the influence that the Italian trio-sonata style had on works written in France and England.

To date, the discs have received two Diapason d’Or awards and two German Record Critics awards, as well as an International Classical Music Award. Pramsohler hopes that his research will give early music practitioners a wider range of repertoire to choose from, as well as broaden our understanding of the music from this period.

"The primary aim of my PhD project is to bring the little-known repertoire of the earliest French and English trio sonatas into the modern concert hall, by taking the initial influence of Italian styles as underlying inspiration towards its interpretation," Pramsohler said.

"In the closing decades of the seventeenth century the introduction of Italian sonata idioms had a significant effect on local cultures of instrumental music in London and Paris."

"The doctorate has formalized my years of extensive work in libraries across Europe. I'm hugely thankful to the Royal Academy of Music, who encouraged and supported me to be bold, courageous, and controversial."

You can read more about Pramsohler's work and listen to his recordings here.