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Baroque Tarantella Reviews
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra & L'Arpeggiata
Baroque Tarantella; Melbourne Recital Centre; September 12 and 13
Clive O'Connell THE AGE 17 September 2010
THE Australian Brandenburg Orchestra turned to collaboration for its latest concerts, inviting the innovative period music ensemble L'Arpeggiata to join in a mixed program that gave space for all to shine.
From the ABO, a string octet with underpinning from Paul Dyer on harpsichord, Jonathan Bradley vaulting between organ and another harpsichord, percussionist Jess Ciampa and the resonant long-necked lute/theorbo of Tommie Andersson was led by L'Arpeggiata's founder Christina Pluhar, also playing theorbo.
They supported three soloists - clarinettist Gianluigi Trovesi, dancer Anna Dego, singer Lucilla Galeazzi - with Margit Ubellacker contributing her psaltery expertise.
The entertainment began in orthodox Renaissance form with a stately intrata by Buonamente. It diverted into original songs from Galeazzi, revealing a folk-tune- indebted lyricism. Her vocal colour has an individuality that brings to mind popular European chanteuses - refreshingly human and miles away from the vibrato-less, sexless timbre embraced by too many baroque vocalists.
Dego's dancing owed much to flamenco-type gestures and a free-flowing ardour. Ubellacker's psaltery work was precise and occasionally virtuosic, her mallets generating an appropriate outspoken harpsichord flavour.
Trovesi's jazz-inflected clarinets made an instant impact. He bent thirds and sixths notes with gusto, yet somehow contrived to slot into the context without overstaying his welcome.
The whole exercise showed how gifted musicians can work harmoniously if they have technical and intellectual insights.
While the almost 30 offerings heavily emphasised the chaconne form - a fixed bass line repeated as needed - the gift from this fusion of musicians was one of grace, enthusiasm and interpretative freedom operating under time-honoured formal constraints.
Foot-stomping music for all tastes and types
Baroque Tarantella. Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and artists from L'Arpeggiata. City Recital Hall, September 10
Harriet Cunningham SMH 13 Sep 2010
There is a place where different types of music meet, where baroque dances turn into folk songs that turn into trad jazz and stomping good singalongs.
It is a place that Christina Pluhar's Ensemble L'Arpeggiata has made its own.
Paul Dyer, the artistic director of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, met Pluhar when they were students at The Hague Conservatorium. They have since taken different musical paths, but when their paths last crossed in Sydney in 2007 it was great musical fun.
Now in 2010 L'Arpeggiata is making a return visit to celebrate the Brandenburg's 21st birthday.
Anyone who went to its 2007 concert will recognise many of the numbers: the crazy theatrical dancer Anna Dego is back, stamping her feet and sticking out her elbows in the traditional Pugliese song Pizzicarella Mia (My Little Scallywag); the charismatic vocalist Lucilla Galeazzi still brings down the house with Voglio Una Casa (I Want a House); and jazz clarinettist Gianluigi Trovesi shakes things up as he willfully leads the ensemble of baroque and renaissance instruments out of their delicate sound world.
There are new treats too, not least Margit Ubellacker, leading exponent of the psaltery. This ancient instrument, the ancestor of the hammered dulcimer or zither, cuts through the traditional baroque string sound, and Ubellacker plays the largely improvised cascades of notes like a demon.
The Brandenburgs are a solid support band to this line-up, demonstrating a laid-back virtuoso style, including some spectacular solo breaks from Marianne Yeomans on viola and the two principal violins.
Most engaging, however, is the percussionist Jess Ciampa, who enters into L'Arpeggiata's dynamic performance style, fuelled by highly charged interaction between all of the performers.
While this is clearly a slick, well-researched and well-rehearsed outfit, it still feels as if the music is being invented there, on the spot, just for you.
It is not often that a classical music audience is persuaded to participate. It is even more rare when their participation is enthusiastic, rowdy, even. But perhaps this is not a classical audience. Perhaps they are just here for the music.
Inspired alliance of ensembles
dominated by song and dance
Baroque Tarantella. Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and artists from L'Arpeggiata. Queensland Performing Arts Centre, September 7.
Gillian Wills THE AUSTRALIAN 09 Sep 2010.
L'ARPEGGIATA, a hip and successful ensemble from Paris that specialises in music from the 16th and 17th centuries, is a perfect fit with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra.
It took a while to acclimatise to the hybrid of stately baroque rhythms generously spiced with jazz, folk and contemporary idioms. Yet the gentle articulation of period instruments such as the lirone (a bowed string instrument), harpsichord and psaltery beguiled the audience. This is baroque music stripped back to its accessible, improvisational heart: a superior brand of enjoyable classical music-making.
After the seamlessly woven introductory items, the stylish, rule-breaking arrangements of guest director Christina Pluhar really took hold.
A jazzy clarinet solo was played against a rippling accompaniment on theorbo (baroque guitar). Lucilla Galeazzi started singing and the stage was invaded by the wild, skirt-twirling, earthy dancing of Anna Dego, whose flirtatious moves and percussive footwork came close to stealing the show.
Apart from the intrigue, energy and seduction, the interweaving of antique instruments, voice and clarinet transmitted an infectiously joyful spirit. The audience relished the scat-singing and folk-spun, honey-toned charms of Galeazzi. Singing in Italian, she crossed the language barrier with her theatrical moves, exaggerated facial expressions and impassioned presence.
This was an inspired alliance of ensembles, and it was fascinating to see how direction seemed to flow to the entire group from Pluhar, Galeazzi and Dego. In one sequence, Dego pulled her arms down from above her head with such force that the entire ensemble physically and musically marked the accents. The musicians were alert and responsive and the result was a warm and spontaneous performance that never retreated into formulaic routine.
High spots included the sustained improvisational edge and the argument between the pleading, protesting and exasperated clarinet (Gianluigi Trovesi) and Galeazzi's distinctive wordless singing in Turturu.
It will be hard to forget the hypnotic dance by a blindfolded Dego to Pluhar's theorbo continuo and the frenetic pulse in Santiago de Murcia's Fandango that breathed with Spanish fire.
BAROQUE TARANTELLA continues in Sydney this weekend! Discover the unique L'Arpeggiata sound here.
BOOK NOW!
City Recital Hall Angel Place 02 8256 2222 (17 Sep 7pm 18 Sep 2pm & 7pm)
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