Review | Feast of string playing in Hong Kong Arts Festival concerts by Concerto Italiano, playing Vivaldi, and Festival Strings Lucerne in a mixed programme
- Period instrument group Concerto Italiano settled quickly into their performance of Vivaldi’s L’estro armonico, their solo and ensemble playing exceptional
- The Festival Strings Lucerne excelled in works by Dubugnon and Mozart, but struggled with Prokofiev, and soloist Akiko Suwanai played Vieuxtemps without nuance
Stravinsky once sneered that the ever-modish Vivaldi wrote the same concerto five hundred times. Clearly, the Russian modernist’s concept of originality was worlds away from that of the Italian baroque.
It was a particularly low blow given the degree of innovation in works such as L’estro armonico (which means harmonic inspiration), performed by Concerto Italiano as part of the Hong Kong Arts Festival on March 9.
Rinaldo Alessandrini’s formidable Rome-based period instrument ensemble presented the composer’s complete Opus 3 in the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall – a set of 12 concertos that saw Vivaldi combine the older baroque concerto grosso and the more modern concerto formats.
The music, shaped by the ensemble’s founder-conductor Alessandrini using neat hand gestures from his seat at the harpsichord, was propelled by a solid and sensitive basso continuo section (cellist Alessandro Palmeri, double bassist Luca Cola, and Ugo Di Giovanni on the theorbo).
Four violinists playing gut-strung instruments provided unanimous articulation and a wealth of tasteful embellishments.
