* En anglais uniquement
Musica Alta Ripa has amassed a substantial catalog of recordings on the audiophile label MDG. The group specializes in historically oriented performances of music of the 17th and 18th centuries. Its membership has been stable since its founding.
Based in the city of Hanover, Germany,
Musica Alta Ripa was founded in 1984. Its name means "Music of the High Riverbank," in Latin, a translation of a possible Old German name for the city of Hanover (Honovere, meaning high bank). Its membership has been stable, including violinists
Anne Röhrig and Ulla Bundies, recorder player Danya Segal, cellist Albert Brüggen, and harpsichordist Bernward Lohr. When
Musica Alta Ripa was founded, the early music scene in Germany was just beginning to develop, and several of the players studied with pioneers of the historical performance movement.
Röhrig studied with
Sigiswald Kuijken,
Ingrid Seifert, and
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and serves as concertmaster of the Baroque ensemble
Das kleine Konzert. Bundies, born in South Africa, studied at the Hanover Music Academy and has worked with leading early music practitioners such as director
Konrad Junghänel and keyboardist
Andreas Staier. Segal studied in her native London with Walter Bergmann and then in Hanover with Ferdinand Conrad; she moved on to the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam for studies with
Kees Boeke and
Walter van Hauwe. Brüggen studied in Amsterdam with
Elias Arizcuren and
Dmitri Ferschtman and has performed as a guest soloist with
Les Musiciens du Louvre and the
Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, among others. Lohr is an educator and opera producer as well as a performer; he has presented operas by Cavalli,
Steffani,
Handel,
Monteverdi, and others, and he teaches at the Nuremberg University of Music.
Musica Alta Ripa performs music of the 17th and 18th centuries, with special emphasis on the chamber music of
Telemann.
Musica Alta Ripa is especially noted for its audiophile recordings of Baroque music, mostly made for the MDG label. The group made its debut in 1990 with an album of Handel cantatas and chamber music, and it has recorded music of
Telemann,
Bach, lesser-known composers such as Hasse, and non-German music.
Musica Alta Ripa moved to the Deutsche Harmonia Mundi for Mother, an album that included Baroque music as well as works and performances by soprano
Dima Orsho. The group is known for its efforts to improve relations between native Germans and Syrian refugees in the Hanover area.