The Kuijken Brothers, 2006

In a year when the York Early Music Festival’s theme celebrated the achievements of musical dynasties, it was fitting that the first ever Lifetime Achievement Award went jointly to Wieland, Sigiswald and Barthold Kuijken, three brothers who were among the most influential figures at the start of the period-instrument movement in Europe. Born in Belgium in 1938, 1944 and 1949 respectively, they embodied the pioneering spirit and independence of thought of those early years, as each was essentially self-taught on his instrument: Wieland on the viola da gamba, which as a cellist he discovered and began to learn in his late teens; Sigiswald on the baroque violin, working alone on the required new techniques and holds (he has recalled that when he was first learning to play the violin without a chin-rest he had to stand on a mattress in case he dropped it); and Barthold on the wooden baroque flute.

As well as playing together at this time, as individuals and as members of the Alarius Ensemble, Wieland and Sigiswald also performed in the 1960s with influential harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt and flautist/recorder-player Frans Brüggen, and later all three brothers were regular chamber-music partners for Leonhardt in concert and on record, performing with success in many parts of the world. At a time when period-instrument performance had barely made any headway in the UK (or indeed in many other countries), the Kuijkens were in the vanguard.

In 1972, Sigiswald founded one of the first full-sized baroque period orchestras, La Petite Bande, in which all three brothers played alongside other musicians from Belgium and The Netherlands. The orchestra was named after Louis XIV’s elite private ensemble, and their first recordings included revelatory accounts of French repertoire. Later they made stylish recordings of Bach and Corelli, as well as operas by Handel and Rameau. Their assured debut at the 1981 BBC Proms made its mark on many of the British period instrumentalists who heard it, and Sigiswald was later invited to conduct the inaugural concert by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in London in 1986. Subsequently he directed them in a brightly uplifting recording of Haydn’s ‘Paris’ Symphonies.

In recent decades, Sigiswald has continued his pioneering activities as a major exponent of the violoncello da spada, or shoulder cello, thought by many to be the instrument for which Bach’s Solo Cello Suites were intended. His recording of them on this instrument appeared in 2007.

Barthold Kuijken came to the York Early Music Festival in 2006 to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award in person on his brothers’ behalf, giving a short recital with harpsichordist Ewald Demeyere. Wieland visited the Festival in 2013 to give a recital with harpsichordist Terence Charlston and fellow gambist Asako Morikawa.