Day: June 12, 2018

Academy of Ancient Music, Nicola Benedetti (violin), Richard Egarr (director and harpsichord)

Barbican Hall, 31st May 2018

• Antonio Vivaldi – Concerto for Violin in D major RV 208 “Il Grosso Mogul”
• Antonio Vivaldi – Concerto for Harpsichord RV 780
• Mystery Composer – Sinfonia in D first movement
• Georg Philipp Telemann – Concerto for Violin in A major TWV 51:A4 “The Frogs”
• Georg Philipp Telemann – Alster Overture-Suite TWV 55:F11
• Georg Philipp Telemann – Concerto for Four Violins in C major TWV 40:203
• Antonio Vivaldi – Concerto in F major RV 569

Time to take BUD to a purely orchestral evening, no voices, albeit in the ostensibly easy on the ear form of the two Baroque masters Vivaldi and Telemann. In the company of KCK who was, rightly, keen to hear the prodigious talent of Nicholas Benedetti. And all of us trusting to the capable hands of Richard Egarr and the Academy of Ancient Music.

Now to accommodate Ms Benedetti some virtuoso music was required. Even by the Red Priest’s breathless standards the D Major Concerto “Il Grosso Mogul” fits that particular bill with its two written out cadenzas in the outer fast movements. I think this showed NB off to best effect with a sharper delineation between soloist and ripieno than some of the subsequent pieces in this well programmed concert, especially in the stunning slow movement. No-one knows where the name grosso mogul comes from but JS Bach was sufficiently impressed to arrange it for organ, BWV 594.

RV 780 is Vivaldi’s only concerto for harpsichord, though only because he noted on the front page of the score that it could be, having originally specified violin and cello. This meant that there was a greater balance across the register than with the double violin peers which AV often wrote and this is what allows for the harpsichord arrangement. Richard Egarr has painstakingly recreated the solo passages, largely with arpeggios and broken chords, which made for fine decoration though I am not sure the Barbican Hall cavern showed this off as well as a smaller more sympathetic space might.

Before the first Telemann piece, the Frogs, Mr Egarr and the AAM had a bit of fun by playing the first movement of a Sinfonia in D by an unnamed composer who we were invited to identify. No answer given but it was plainly Italian so maybe Sammartini (GB) for the simple reason that he churned out a ton of them.

The Frogs is structured in the Italianate three movement fashion, not the Germanic four, and does everything you expect Telemann to do. It is laced with humour, is effortlessly easy on the ears and doesn’t let the soloist hog too much of the limelight. With plenty of riternello and suspension, it made a fine partner to the opening Vivaldi. Not bad for someone, GPT, who never set foot in Italy. The eponymous frog sound on the NB’s first entry is apparently created trough the use of bariolage, the rapid alternation of the same note between fingered and open strings (which Vivaldi was also partial to). There you go. NB was grace personified here, as she was throughout, stepping back into the band when required.

GPT churned out a fair few of his programmatic overture-suites, 600 to be exact, and it is pretty easy to see why the toffs he wrote them for lapped them up. This particular one takes as its inspiration the River Alster which joins the Elbe in Hamburg where GPT was director of its five main churches from 1721 until his death in 1767. (GPT stayed in Paris for a few months during this tenure where he was exposed to the French operatic style – with its dances –  which he incorporated into these suites). In this particular example he serves up an intro followed by eight subsequent movements each of which does exactly what it says on the tin. The “echo” of the third movement, oboes serenely imitating swans in the fifth, the chromatic crows and frogs of the seventh, the lyricism of the strings in the eighth, “Pan at rest” and the joyous winds and horns in the finale as the nymphs and shepherds leave the party. It is “lightweight” I suppose but when it is this much fun who cares.

GPT’s next contribution was one of a set of four concertos each for four violins. And nothing else. No continuo. No other instrumentation. Moreover it is in four movements – slow/fast/slow/fast – like the sonata di chiesa of old. There is plenty going on through its total ten minutes or so and all four violinists get time to shine, Ms Benedetti being joined by three excellent AAM regulars, I wish I could tell you who. Sorry.

The final piece was Vivaldi’s F major RV 569 which has pairs of horns and oboes, and a bassoon, added to the continuo and violins. Here NB took the lead in the outer two fast movements though the horns and wind also have a lot to say. The middle slow movement is the very model of brevity, even by Vivaldi’s economical standards, lasting just 20 bars. I loved it. Mind you I love every note of every concerto that AV ever wrote for violin (and most other instruments). I would it suspect take a lifetime of devotion and an acute and scholarly ear to “know” every one of AV’s five hundred-odd concertos. No matter. With music this immediate it doesn’t matter. Indeed Ms Benedetti encored with a chaconne-like slow movement from a Vivaldi concerto I think but no idea which.

Overworked in his lifetime I reckon, despite his devotion to the education of the orphans in the Ospedale in Venice, underpaid, never given a proper contract, and buried as a pauper in Vienna where he went to get a job when he fell out of fashion. Then ignored for one hundred and fifty years. Always a bit poorly as well. And a ginger, though you wouldn’t know from the stinky wig he is wearing above.

Still no Vivaldi, no Bach. And imagine how much poorer Western art music would have been without Johann Sebastian. GP Telemann, for me, is now quite as satisfying, though BUD and KCK probably disagreed on the night, but he is musical elegance, flair and invention personified. And his music, like Haydn’s later on, will make you happy. As, on every outing, do the AAM. The venue may not be ideal for the intimacy of Baroque even at this scale, but I hope the AAM were able to turn a few quid here because of that. Well deserved.