»I have always wanted everything and loved every kind of music, from Monteverdi to today.« This is how Nicolas Altstaedt, the current Artist in Residence with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, explained his stylistic universality in a recent interview. The cellist does not see why early music should be surrendered to the so-called specialists. He may not play an original Baroque instrument, he performs »only« with a Baroque bow and the kind of gut strings common in the Baroque period. However, Altstaedt believes that historically authentic performance practice is »less a matter of the material than it is about understanding and expressing the music«. read less