![]() In the music realm, the better-known Harlem Renaissance - the emergence of Black artists to be reckoned with - leaned more heavily on jazz, where the group of Chicago-based women presented here took on the classical world.įlorence Price is the best known of this group, but Cann demonstrated why the music of Margaret Bonds, Irene Britton Smith, and Betty Jackson King deserves more attention, too. In Harris Hall on Monday evening, Michelle Cann, who holds the piano chair at Curtis Institute, brought enthusiasm and dynamic playing to a program that celebrated the women composers of the Chicago Black Renaissance. This created an extra-fussy version that only found glory in the magnificent Molto Adagio at the center of the quartet. 132.” As if the score had not notated enough sudden dynamic changes, crescendos, and diminuendos, the quartet added more of their own. The second half was devoted to Beethoven’s “String Quartet in A minor, op. Written for Isbin and the quartet, the piece never seemed to find footing, meandering aimlessly through impressions of life in rural 19th-century New England. In between came a new work, “The Song of a Dreaming Sparrow,” by composer Joseph Schwantner. She topped off the first half leading a lively and fun “Fandango” from Boccherini’s “Quintet No. Guitarist Sharon Isbin, a longtime Aspen favorite, joined Thursday’s Pacifica Quartet recital to carry the familiar strains of Vivaldi’s “Guitar Concerto in D major” with panache. The rest of the week had its ups and downs. Both musicians unfurled the music in unhurried fashion. The encore, “Meditation” from Massenet’s opera “Thaïs,” brought things to a gorgeously peaceful close. ![]() 3 in D minor” found its direction in the gorgeous Adagio, and finished strong in the Presto Agitato finale. Shaham often takes a more Romantic approach to Bach’s music, and Spano went along with a softer-edged (if heavier) touch than we usual hear. It all fits tightly together, with snippets of the theme launching brilliant passages from the soloists, until the close - which will leave many of us hungry for more.The duo opened with Bach’s “Violin Sonata in F minor.” Anticipating the new piece, it began with a long, winding melody in slow motion against a gently twisting counterpoint in the piano. In the Presto finale, orchestra and soloists work together closely to give us a movement based on a multi-part ritornello theme. The “bookends” consist merely of a brief bass line, which becomes a repeated cycle over which the soloists spin out free variations. Like bookends, the full orchestra’s statements at the beginning and end enclose the soloists’ vocal-inspired melodiousness. The Larghetto, too, is quintessentially Vivaldi. In the solo parts, Vivaldi gives us just the right balance between beauty and virtuosic display. Add to that the catchiness of the themes, and you have the recipe that has fascinated listeners from J.S. Vivaldi’s fast movements are famous for dash and verve, and the opening Allegro of this work is no exception. Bach knew them, and he transcribed six of them for organ or keyboard, one of which is this A-minor Concerto for two violins, strings, and basso continuo. ![]() Certainly, these 12 concertos for one, two, three, or four violins became widely known during their first years of publication. 3,” writes Michael Talbot, biographer of Antonio Vivaldi. “In 1711, Etienne Roger, the Amsterdam publisher, brought out what was to become the most influential music publication of the first half of the 18th century: Vivaldi’s L’estro armonico, Op.
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