ENSEMBLE 1 - Postcard From Rome

Jamie Hey relishes the opportunity to select the ensemble program.

"The Brandenburg Ensemble presented music … with the refinement of playing and elegance of style that is only possible when each performer is a specialist in historical performance practice." The Sydney Morning Herald

Postcard from Rome offers a program that, like the city itself, excites the senses - enchanting, beautiful and romantic, spiritually introspective yet dramatically expressive.

In seventeenth-century Rome the wealthy and influential elite from amongst the nobility and the church were significant patrons of the arts. But finding the balance between the passions of love, art, power and religion was Rome's challenge.

Elsewhere in Italy, opera was taking everyone's interest, but in Rome public performance of opera was banned by the popes, who feared its excess. Nonetheless, the finest musicians and composers from all over Italy (many of whom led scandalous private lives) were attracted to Rome by the promise of employment by the powerful and wealthy. These great composers channelled their passions into new and acceptable forms of vocal music and increasingly important instrumental music.

Dramatic and romantic with a refined grace and haunting beauty, this concert features some rarely-heard works from the renowned musicians of the period, including Scarlatti and Corelli. A highlight will be the Brandenburg soloists demonstrating their talents for improvisation in Pasquini's sonata, the score of which consists only of two bass lines.

Program

Corelli	Trio sonata, Op 3 No 12
A Scarlatti	Cantata Bella madre dei fiori
Ciccolini	Sinfonia for the oratorio Assalone punito by Pietro Andrea Ziani
Durón	Cantada al Santísimo con violines Ay, qué me abraso de amor en la llama
Pasquini	Sonata III in D minor
D Scarlatti	Cantata Tinte a note di sangue
Monteverdi	Pur ti miro from the opera L'incoronazione di Poppea

Performers

Guest soloists

Tessa Miller	soprano
Fiona Campbell	mezzo-soprano

The musicians on period instruments

Lucinda Moon	violin
Ben Dollman	violin
Jamie Hey	cello
Kirsty McCahon	violone
Tommie Andersson	archlute/guitar
Rosemary Hodgson	theorbo
Linda Kent	organ/harpsichord

For Sydney performances, your ticket includes a complimentary drink at interval. Musicologist Alan Maddox will also provide an insightful on-stage commentary during the performance.

Classic Mozart

Guest artist, fortepiano Kristian Bezuidenhout (USA)

Charming, vibrant, vivid, melancholy, yearning, haunting, rousing, exhilarating

"Bezuidenhout played with vigour, variety and colour: extraordinary...and immensely expressive."
Boston Globe

A beautiful range of classical pieces to blend and contrast.

Mayr, a younger contemporary of Mozart and teacher of the next generation of Italian composers, exhibits vibrant orchestration and vivid dramatic harmonies with his overture to the oratorio Sisara.

Mozart's Rondo is one of Mozart's most beautiful concerto movements, showcasing limpid melodies, dramatic contrast and dazzling virtuosity - leaving you with a feeling of delicacy and beautiful expression.

Haydn, a contemporary of Mozart with a repertoire three times the size, is undeservedly often overlooked. This program features his Symphony No 82 in C major, known as 'The Bear'. It offers a cheeky, virtuosic half hour of intense playing which is as much fun for the audience as it is for the Orchestra.

Schuster's piano and string writings influenced the young Mozart and by 1792 he was recognized throughout Germany as "one of our most popular composers". Overture to Rübezahl has been described as "fiery instrumental accompaniment" with dramatic devices of the Sturm und Drang ("storm and stress") style, characterised by sudden fortes and unexpected pauses.

Mozart's Piano Concerto K467 is one of the most famous and best loved of Mozart's concertos, combining symphonic, chamber and operatic styles. Mozart's intentions were for the concerto to be "accessible and popular" and to fall pleasantly on the ear, with yearningly beautiful slow movements.

Program

Mayr Mozart Haydn Schuster Mozart

Overture to the oratorio Sisara Rondo in A major, K386 Symphony No 82 in C major Overture to the opera Rübezahl Piano Concerto No 21 in C major, K467