About Pratum Integrum Orchestra

Artistic Director: Pavel Serbin (cello)

Concertmaster: Sergey Filchenko (violin)

The Pratum Integrum orchestra performs with authentic instruments. The Latin name translates as ‘unmown meadow’ and refers to their broad-ranging repertoire from the Baroque and Classical periods, about which little is known to this day. This is the only orchestra in Russia in which all the groups of historic instruments are represented: strings, wind and percussion, and moreover all the instruments were made in the 18th to 19th centuries or copied from period examples. Pratum Integrum’s performances are a careful recreation using original treatises, primary sources and eye-witness accounts by contemporaries.
The orchestra was established in Moscow in 2003 with sponsorship from the company Essential Music, immediately gaining a reputation as an extraordinary, outstanding and highly professional group of musicians with a predilection for fast tempos and vivid, fresh interpretations. Since then the orchestra has played more than 200 compositions for the Russian public, among them recently discovered pieces by Russian composers, once performed in the imperial court concerts; French music, which delighted Louis XIV and Louis XV; overtures by Telemann, which were very popular throughout Germany in the 18th century.
Using authentic performance techniques, Pratum Integrum has played concerts with leading European musicians and specialists in the field: Trevor Pinnock (UK), Sigiswald and Wieland Kuijken (Belgium), Alfredo Bernardini (Italy), Paul Esswood (UK), Simone Kermes (Germany), Christophe Rousset (France), Philippe Jaroussky (France), Paolo Grazzi (Italy), etc.
Pratum Integrum has taken part in the Russian premiere of Lully’s ballet Les Saisons, a unique performance of Fomin’s melodrama Orpheus (with the Russian Horn Orchestra) and concert performances of such operas as Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Traetta’s Antigone.
The orchestra pays great attention to sacred music: it acquainted the Russian public with a historically correct version of Mozart’s Requiem, participated in a production of Bach’s St John Passion, Bach’s Mass in B minor and also in the Russian premiere of Gebel’s St John Passion.
Pratum Integrum has participated in several prominent international festivals such as Tage Alter Music (Regensburg; 2006), Musica Antiqua (Bruges; 2006), Nordlysfestivalen (Tromsø; 2009), Earlymusic (St Petersburg; 2009–2011), G.Ph.Telemann International Festival (Magdeburg; 2010)
Pratum Integrum performs without a conductor or under the direction of guest maestros. From the very beginning, a cellist Pavel Serbin has been the orchestra’s artistic director, a violinist Sergey Filchenko – concertmaster. Leading Pratum Integrum performers also continue their solo careers, performing in Russia and abroad. One of them, a brilliant violinist and countertenor Dmitry Sinkovsky, recently won the Telemann Competition in Magdeburg (2011).
The orchestra has recorded more than fifteen albums for the Caro Mitis label. Among them are monographic albums featuring names known only by music scholars until recently: Tietz, Rosetti, Wölfl and Platti. Most of these albums have been highly rated by important foreign music magazines (Diapason, Toccata-Alte Musik aktuell, Le Monde de la Musique, Positive Feedback Online and others).
At present Pratum Integrum continues working on a unique project dedicated to G.P.Telemann. Telemann wrote more than a hundred orchestral suites, most of them still unknown to the wider audience. Pratum Integrum intends to fill the gap over the next few years.