Oliver Webber has been specialising in historical violins and their relatives since the early 1990s. He has been a passionate advocate for bringing research and performance together: his work in the field of string-making has been transformative, inspiring individuals and ensembles worldwide, and his study of historical bow-holds has played a role in several important recordings, including Gabrieli’s award-winning readings of Purcell in 2019. Oliver holds a particular fascination for the art of ornamentation: he teaches courses on ornamentation in a range of styles for singers and instrumentalists at the Guildhall School in London, where he is a professor of baroque violin and viola, and his 2021 Resonus Classics recording, Con Arte e Maestria, was described as ‘dazzling yet intelligent’ – Planet Hugill. Oliver is also the founder and director of Monteverdi String Band, whose performances (‘the very embodiment of sprezzatura’ – Early Music Review) have been inspired by literature, science and the carnival entertainments of the Venetian nobility.

What is your idea of perfect happiness? 
 
Sitting on a mountain terrace in Italy in the sun, with a large gin & tonic, a crossword and a book (or several), and absolutely no agenda!
 
What non-musical hobbies or interests do you have? 

Languages – I love learning languages and learning about languages. If I had my student time again I might choose linguistics. For example I’ve been learning Italian for many years, and of course much of the repertoire we programme with Monteverdi String Band involves Italian texts. I became fascinated with the differences between 16th and 17^th century Italian and the language as it is spoken today, and with the features of the various poetic forms; studying these has been a huge help interpreting the texts set by Monteverdi and his contemporaries.  

Recently I have started to unwind by watching dystopian Korean TV series, and became fascinated by the language to the point of trying to learn a few words – which is proving a significantly harder challenge! I also very much enjoy reading about history; my current go-to topic is late antiquity and the early middle ages, especially in terms of the history of ideas (science, philosophy, religion).  

During lockdown I took courses in proofreading and editing, and recently edited my first book: Russell Gilmour’s beautiful new work on the natural trumpet. Outside the house I enjoy travelling, cycling and good coffee.
 
What is your earliest musical memory?  

Listening to Stephane Grappelli on my mother’s ancient turntable, astonished at the speed and how high he was playing, only to realise we had set it to 45 rpm instead of 33! 
 
 What’s so special about HIP/early music performances? 

The freshness and creativity they offer. When I was a student, I noticed that many of us interested in HIP were also interested in contemporary music. At first I found that curious, but on reflection, they have some important features in common: both typically involve smaller ensembles, allowing everyone to contribute to the rehearsal, and both involve creating something new, often through experimentation with unfamiliar textures and techniques. Good HIP (in my opinion) should have that sense of creating something new, rather than *re*creating something old. To do that, you really need to immerse yourself in the whole cultural milieu of the period, which is tremendously rewarding in itself.
 
If you could meet anyone from the past, who would it be? 

Galileo Galilei: philosopher, mathematician, scientist, poet, playwright, musician, and much more besides. Reading his works, you get a sense not only of his great intellect and vast range of knowledge, but also his wit: I love the fact that he used quotes from his favourite poet (Ariosto) to insult his opponents. He seems to have cared as much about poetry as about his scientific enquiries, judging by his critical commentary on Tasso’s ‘Gerusalemme Liberata’, which he viciously excoriates line by line! He was a fine lutenist, like his father Vincenzo, from whom he may also have inherited some of his investigative rigour: Vincenzo had been a shining example of the importance of challenging the claims of authority. 

Would you like to put the spotlight on a teacher, a mentor or an ensemble that has had a significant influence on your journey so far, and why?     

I have had so many wonderful teachers over the years – the wonderful Micaela Comberti, who got me started on my baroque journey, Mark Knight, who inspired my interest in historical style from a modern violin perspective, Ryo Terakado, whose calm, patient teaching and inspirational demonstrations helped me reach the next level while studying in The Hague.  

Outside the violin world, I would particularly like to mention the great cornettist Bruce Dickey, who came to The Hague in 1994 and fired a new enthusiasm for the style of Monteverdi and his contemporaries, and the exceptional tenor Charles Daniels, from whose singing I have learnt an extraordinary amount, much of it otherwise elusive and unteachable, about playing the baroque violin. 

What made you choose the violin? 

My mother! One day our weekly shopping trip to Bury St Edmunds was subverted by a surprise visit to a Saturday morning music school, much to my initial outrage. However, it turned out that the violin suited me rather well. Had she asked me in advance, I would undoubtedly have refused to go, so her subterfuge was understandable! 
 
As founder of the Monteverdi String Band, what do you enjoy most about your role, and how do you overcome any challenges?

I absolutely love coming up with programme ideas, and the moment when we first perform a new programme, typically after months of research, is always a special one.  

There are of course many challenges: being a rather ‘niche’ ensemble, it is not always straightforward to persuade promoters and festivals that our shows will be a success. Promoters get hundreds of emails from prospective performers like us, and unless they have a special interest in our repertoire, they may prefer to ‘play it safe’ with tried and trusted composers. The reactions we get from audiences, though, are wonderfully rewarding – when we performed in Edinburgh in 2023, the discussions with audience members afterwards about the connections between rhetoric, science and music were such a pleasure, not just because of their intrinsic interest, but because it showed that we had ‘got through’ to our audience that day.

Your projects with the Monteverdi String Band have combined music with other art forms. Can you tell us more? 

I have always felt that appreciation of any work of art benefits from awareness of its wider cultural context: it’s hard to fully appreciate a Renaissance painting without understanding how artists used symbols, composition and rhetorical personifications, for example. Similarly, even though Monteverdi’s music speaks to us very directly across the centuries, hearing the poetry or literature of his contemporaries gives it another dimension. We know, for example, that young Venetian noblemen in the 17^th century were expected not only to be expert swordsmen, historians, diplomats, and linguists, but also to have a profound knowledge of the classics as well as more recent vernacular literature. Quotes from Ariosto and Tasso were adduced to illustrate the virtues to which one should aspire, for example.  

Consequently, bringing other elements into our performances creates an opportunity to deliver a more holistic experience for our listeners. It might be as simple as readings from literature or poetry of the time, but our more ambitious projects have involved video projections (courtesy of the inimitable Brighton Early Music Festival), actors (Robin Soans’ wonderful evocation of the aging Galileo being the most memorable), and choreographed sword-fighting (Monteverdi’s Combattimento, thanks to the skilful and sensitive direction of Karolina Sofulak). The latter was a particularly exciting project for us: invited to present this slightly enigmatic work for Martin Randall in Venice (where we could be sure of a highly knowledgeable audience!), we decided to set it in a context similar to the evening entertainments at the Mocenigo Palace in Venice, in which it was first performed: beginning with poems, witty and serious, interspersed with non-staged madrigals, the evening is dramatically interrupted by a change of lighting and the appearance of the two combatants, armed and furious, ready to bring Torquato Tasso’s epic description of an ugly, brutal, passionate fight to life. The final scene in which Tancredi baptises the dying Clorinda brought a tear to everyone’s eye.

You are a passionate advocate for bringing research and performance together. How has this shaped your career so far? 

It has been a driving force! I always had the impression that the academic and performing worlds were rather distant from one another – there was a sense on both sides that the other one was irrelevant, or at best, only tangentially of interest. In historical performance, this seems like a missed opportunity: of all the fields of performance, this is the one that can most directly benefit from academic research, while researchers, for their part, can enjoy seeing their labours come to fruition on stage.

In June 2024 the Monteverdi String Band released their debut album, The Madrigal Reimagined. Could you share with us any special moments in the realisation of this project?

This was a project very close to our hearts; an early version of the programme was devised for our first invitation to an overseas festival: Echi Lontani in Sardinia. That one was purely instrumental, and our first exploration of Monteverdi’s madrigals – something we had wanted to do for years. The version with voice and lute (Hannah Ely and Toby Carr) proved very popular, and when the opportunity to record it came along, we felt that this was the culmination of a long development in our studies of Monteverdi, ornamentation, style and the whole cultural milieu from which these works emerged.  

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There have been many highlights along the way: our first concert after lockdown took place at BREMF, outdoors, with everyone placed on plinths 2 metres apart, to minimise the chance of Covid-related cancellation! Hearing applause for the first time in well over a year was one of the most moving moments we have experienced on stage. The following year (2022), Continuo Foundation funding enabled us to put on another performance of the programme at Purbeck – this was especially important, as it was Richard Brown, the festival director, who had proposed the collaboration with Hannah and Toby in the first place. This marked a real turning point, because Richard was enthused by the programme to the point of energetically encouraging us to record it!  

In early September of 2024, 2 months before the recording took place, we heard that we had been successful in our funding applications to Angel Early Music and Continuo Foundation, which, along with some of our own reserves and some private donations, meant everything was secure for the recording sessions. The fact that we got the news on my birthday was an added bonus! 

After some busy weeks of refining the programme, rehearsing, preparatory concerts, and planning around everyone’s diaries and other commitments, arriving at the first session and hearing the first takes, in which Adam Binks (Resonus Classics) seemed to capture our sound perfectly, was a wonderful moment – we knew we were on track!  

Finally, the launch concert at the British Italian Society, where we could perform and celebrate with another wonderfully appreciative group of like-minded people, felt like a moment of fulfilment.

You teach a course on ornamentation for singers and instrumentalists at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where you are professor of baroque violin and viola. Can you tell us more about the place of teaching in your career? 

Teaching plays a very important role for me; it is through teaching that my research on ornamentation came about, for example. I am really thrilled that this has expanded from my one to one lessons into larger classes, because it is an exciting challenge to think about how to teach something seemingly so ephemeral to people experiencing it for the first time. It has made me think hard about what really happens in the mind when creating ornaments, and what obstacles students might face achieving this.  

This very week I have been working with singers on repertoire from Cavalli to Rameau, and because the topic is new to them, they have a real sense of wonder and delight when they first hear, and then sing, the various kinds of ornamentation that go with each style. This afternoon I watched while two singers challenged themselves to produce the most beautiful combination of dissonance and resolution through ornamentation – it was a privilege to witness.

The Madrigal Reimagined, with Hannah Ely, Toby Carr, Monteverdi String Band and Oliver Webber is available to order from Resonus Classics and on all major streaming services.