Italian violinist Fabio Biondi's Baroque ensemble shines at Disney Hall.

By Chris Pasles, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer                                             April 3, 2008

Whatever is happening to global weather patterns, there's definitely been a climate change in the performance of Baroque music since the stranglehold of historical performance practice began tightening in the 1970s.  The atmosphere is more temperate now. Laws have relaxed. Variety is encouraged. The regional differences that existed in the period itself are mirrored in different approaches by groups from a variety of cities and countries.  Italian violinist Fabio Biondi founded his period instrument group, Europa Galante, in 1990 to assert his country's presence on this international scene. The results have grown increasingly prominent and welcome at festivals and concerts around the world. The group has a special reputation for resurrecting 18th century Italian operas, and its recording of Vivaldi's "Bajazet" was nominated for a Grammy in 2006.

Tuesday night, Biondi brought the 11-member ensemble to Walt Disney Concert Hall for a program called "France, Italy and England -- Connections and Exchange," which included concertos by Vivaldi and Leclair, a suite by Purcell and a suite of Biondi's own devising drawing on the music of six composers. The playing that ensued was inviting, energetic, tightly cohesive and transparent in texture. It adhered to the general historically informed approach regarding short phrasings and sparing use of vibrato, but it was more liberal in its shifting dynamics.

Although not as personally expressive as some Baroque violinists (the San Francisco-based Philharmonia Baroque's Elizabeth Blumenstock comes to mind), Biondi wore his considerable virtuosity and authority lightly, with no grandstanding. Like all the musicians, except for the cellist, harpsichordist and theorbo, or lute, player, he stood when he played. Vivaldi was represented by three pieces: the Sinfonia to the serenata "La Senna Festeggiante," the Concerto in D minor for viola d'amore and lute, RV 540, and the Concerto in D minor for two violins, cello and strings, Opus 3, No. 11. The last, from the influential collection "L'Estro Armonico," is one of the works Bach transcribed for keyboard as he studied the Italian master's music.

All three works gave evidence of that amazing quality of unpredictable melodic, harmonic and rhythmic invention in seemingly straitjacketed forms that has beguiled audiences for three centuries.  Short fanfares and trotting rhythms opened the Sinfonia, taken from an obsequious 1726 Venetian ceremony honoring the French King Louis XV -- although unexpected chromatic slithering surfaced in the slow middle movement.

Giangiacomo Pinardi was Biondi's valuable partner in the soft-toned concerto for viola d'amore and lute. In the sometimes weird duo-violin concerto, Andrea Rognoni matched Biondi perfectly in imitative passages and stood by patiently whenever Biondi got the lion's share of the limelight, which was more often than might have been expected. Maurizio Naddeo was the exceedingly capable cellist, Salvatore Carchiolo the harpsichordist.

Not surprisingly, Purcell's nine-movement Suite from Aphra Benn's bloody-minded play "Abdelazer, or the Moor's Revenge" was more dour and dramatic than any of the Vivaldi pieces. But Leclair's Violin Concerto in C, Opus 7, No. 3, which followed, restored a sense of ease and good humor to the program.

Biondi's concluding suite, "Les Nations," consisted of movements by Baldassare Galuppi, Georg Muffat, André Campra, Georg Philipp Telemann, Heinrich Biber and André Cardinal Destouches.  Each piece was originally composed in a style considered foreign or exotic, but those distinctions seem only quaint now, even as some of the composers have faded into obscurity. All were worthy, with Destouches' closing Chaconne especially gracious and delightful.

The encore was the Pizzicato from Gluck's "Don Juan."

Michael Falco for The New York Times

Fabio Biondi, second from left, led Europa Galante at the Miller Theater in the last concert in the series “Bach and the Baroque.”

April 14, 2008  Music Review | Europa Galante       By BERNARD HOLLAND

World Tour, in a Baroque Sort of Way

Baroque music practiced its own kind of globalism in its time, although the globe was smaller then. Bach wrote French and English suites and an “Italian Concerto.” Domenico Scarlatti wrote in a style nurtured in Italy but with the twang and rhythmic snap of a Spanish guitar. The fascination that turn-of-the-18th-century Europe felt for the faraway extended to barbarians (“Les Barbares” by Biber) and China (“Les Chinois” by André Campra), both pieces heard in Europa Galante’s concert at the Miller Theater on Saturday evening, the last of four in a series called “Bach and the Baroque.” The 10-member string band, directed by Fabio Biondi, offered music by Italians, British, French and Germans, all thinking about places other than their own. There were various concertos by Vivaldi, one by Jean-Marie Leclair and a suite from Purcell’s “Abdelazer (The Moor’s Revenge).”

At the end Mr. Biondi assembled an international conference in eight movements called “Les Nations,” with references to Spain, France, Italy, Denmark, Britain, China and, again, those barbarians. The participating composers were Galuppi, Muffat, Campra, Telemann and Biber. A handsome Chaconne by André Cardinal Destouches served as a finale. Some of the exchanges of information between composer and country were firsthand. Vivaldi traveled north to Central Europe. Telemann’s movements were more east and west. Bach never went much of anywhere but devoured the Vivaldi scores that came his way. Until fairly recently, works thought to be Bach’s were really Vivaldi pieces copied out in Bach’s hand.

Distinguishing nationalistic tendencies at Saturday’s concert required paying attention to formats, and also to the power of suggestion. The slow introduction in dotted rhythms by Galuppi (a Venetian) displayed a Frenchness that was later a hallmark for the symphonies of Haydn (an Austrian). Campra’s Chinese music, on the other hand, was about as Chinese as chop suey. Biber’s barbarisms were unmistakable: violent accents, lopsided movement and a sudden ending. The nine Purcell movements here were completely civil and filled with life; if exoticisms were intended, jaded modern ears had to take them on faith.

Mr. Biondi, busy everywhere as a violinist, also joined Giangiacomo Pinardi in Vivaldi’s D minor Concerto for viola d’amore and lute. Other principals in this good group were Andrea Rognoni, violinist, and Maurizio Naddeo, cellist.

October 25, 2005

Music Review | Europa Galante

A Violinist's Spry Spins on Mozart And Vivaldi

By ANNE MIDGETTE

You could say it was a concert about Vivaldi, whose music was supposed to begin and end it. You could say it was a concert about narrative music, since the revised program order began with Telemann's tongue-in-cheek musical accounting of that great tongue-in-cheek novel "Don Quixote" and culminated in Vivaldi's illustrative "Four Seasons."

Or you could say that the concert - given by the ensemble Europa Galante on Sunday afternoon at Alice Tully Hall - was about Fabio Biondi, the violinist who founded the group and serves as its conductor, concertmaster and soloist. In the first half, which included the 11th symphony by Mozart, then 14 years old, and Vivaldi's overture to the pasticcio opera "Il Tamerlano" (also called "Il Bajazet"), as well as Telemann's "Burlesque de Quixotte," he played with his back half to the audience, actively fostering a spicy ensemble sound that mingled crisp delivery and animation with the throatiness of period instruments.

Then, for "The Four Seasons," he turned around for his solos to face the audience for the first time, and there was the sense of a dramatic unveiling of a musician who, from the first birdsongs of "Spring," was at once puckish and virtuosic.

The implicit but unspoken drama of that unveiling was characteristic of an event where the strengths lay in small touches, bright thoughts and an easy vigor, all offered with an understatement born of complete confidence. Mr. Biondi did not always even play cleanly, and there were moments - the adagio of "Summer," for instance - when the music seemed to lose steam. But the afternoon's hallmark was a kind of expressive vitality that held back enough to let the music speak for itself.

Some ensembles, in reanimating old music, push it to the brink of violence. In this performance, by contrast, the ends of movements often closed with surprising paleness, as if the music had naturally run its course - or as if Mr. Biondi's active mind had already moved on to the next topic.

www.SanDiego-online.com

Europa Galante and Fabio Biondi

10/16/2005      Review by Christian Hertzog

Europa Galante (Fabio Biondi,last row, 3rd from left)
An early music concert can have its benefits and its drawbacks. On the one hand, we get to hear infrequently performed music. On the other hand, we have to listen to infrequently performed music.

Such was the case with Europa Galante, led by the terrific violinist, Fabio Biondi. When local or visiting orchestras play Baroque music, it's usually drawn from the same two dozen or so pieces: Bach orchestral suites or concerti, Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Handel's Water Music, etc. In its Sunday evening concert at Sherwood Auditorium, Europa Galante eschewed the obvious, opting for an enlightening evening of 18th-century orchestral music.

The standard Baroque orchestra of the time consisted of strings with a continuo. The continuo, the Baroque equivalent of the jazz rhythm section, could consist of any instrument capable of playing harmonies (harpsichord, organ, lutes), usually supplemented with a bass instrument (gamba, cello, even bassoon). Europa Galante assigned the continuo part to a combination of cello, violone (the predecessor to the contrabass), harpsichord, and theorbo (a large lute, whose size suits it better for ensemble playing).

Twenty years ago, hearing string ensembles play with little or no vibrato was a novelty. Today, are there any classical music listeners who have not encountered period ensemble performances of Baroque music?

As you might expect from an orchestra booked by the San Diego Early Music Society, Europa Galante interprets Baroque music using "authentic" performance practices. Since we have no recordings from the time, and expressive marks were minimal, if at all present, there is tremendous leeway, and sometimes rancorous debate, in what constitutes an authentic performance. For instance, how fast is an Allegro? How slow is a Largo? How much embellishment and ornamentation is appropriate? What kind of tone should the strings produce?

Some practitioners (think of Roger Norrington with his Beethoven symphonies) take an openly confrontational stance, resulting in radical new interpretations. Europa Galante takes a middle-of-the road approach. Their performance aesthetic is not an end in itself. Sure, there's the by-now-standard vibrato-less playing in the strings, and they do this extremely well. If there was one turn-off above all others in the 1970s-80s in early music recordings, it was the bad intonation. Europa Galante rarely hit sour notes, producing bold, clear fortes, beautiful pianissimos, and crisp ensemble work.

The harpsichordist (Paola Poncet) and theorbo player (Giangiacomo Pinardi) produced inventive, but never distracting, accompaniments, sweet melodies and chordal figurations of their own creation. This was most noticeable at the end of the Adagio in Corelli's Concerto Grosso in D, op. 6, no. 4. Many Baroque slow movement end with a series of three or four chords, each one held in unison rhythm. Here, the chords were drawn out, while the theorbo and harpsichord spun out delightful little cadenzas.

The program began with Telemann's Burlesque de Quixotte, an orchestral dance suite doubling as program music in which various scenes from Don Quixote are depicted. This was followed by Geminiani's Concerto Grosso in D Minor, a set of variations on the folia (a bass pattern from the Renaissance that, in its continuous reuse by composers, became the classical equivalent of 12-bar blues). Like Telemann, Geminiani's variations take on another aspect--in their grouping of fast, slow, and then fast variations, they mimic a traditional three-movement form.

It was in Geminiani's Concerto Grosso that Fabio Biondi first gave us a taste of his virtuosity, in variations which featured furious solo violin passagework. In one of these, two distinct lines emerged as Geminiani set up a call and response with rapid passagework alternating between the upper and lower strings of Biondi's violin.

Next, in the Violin Concerto by Vivaldi (op. 3, no. 9 in D major), Biondi further revealed his keen musicianship in clean cascades of breakneck scales and arpeggios in the outer movements, and a warm, lyrical solo in the inner. The continuo (which included the lower strings) dropped out in this Larghetto, leaving only the gentle yet relentless pulsing of the violins and violas to discreetly accompany Biondi.

Biondi's stage demeanor is fairly low key; the disparity between the torrents of notes flying off his instrument and his poker face was a refreshing change of pace to the emotional mugging of many violin soloists. His fingers zipped across the violin strings and his bowing arm was a blur, all the while as he calmly gazed at his music stand.

The same high standards of solo and orchestral performance prevailed in the second half, which consisted of Sammartini's Sinfonia in F major, JC 38, Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in D minor, op. 8, no. 9, and Corelli's Concerto Grosso in D major, op. 6, no. 4.

It was nice to hear this repertory, rare as it is in San Diego. But the old jokes about every Baroque concerto sounding the same began to surface by intermission. While it was educational, and even pleasant to hear Sammartini and Geminiani, well--did we really need to hear them? Part of the sonic fatigue, such as it was, may have been due to the key relationships: at least 4 pieces in D major or minor, and another in F major (which has the same key signature as D minor).

In the grand scheme of things, the excellence of the performances and the novelty of the repertory (for San Diegans, anyway) ultimately prevailed. The audience loudly called Europa Galante back on the stage three times, until they finally played an encore, a charming unidentified piece played entirely pizzicato, which they miraculously faded out to practically nothing.

As I left the hall, I couldn't help noticing that I'd heard an Italian orchestra play practically nothing but Italian composers, and the week before, a Mexican orchestra play Mexican composers (with one Cuban composer). Is it too much to hope to hear in San Diego, in the not too distant future, an American orchestra playing a concert of American music?

Click here for program.

August 9, 2003
MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL REVIEW

A Scarlatti Premiere, but for the Father

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

A generation ago when you mentioned Scarlatti, everyone assumed you were talking about Domenico Scarlatti, the 18th-century composer of some 550 single-movement keyboard sonatas, wondrously inventive works that were championed by Vladimir Horowitz and that turned up on recitals by conservatory pianists everywhere. And Alessandro Scarlatti? Oh yeah, he was that forgotten Baroque composer who was Domenico's father.

Actually, in his day the elder Scarlatti, born in 1660, was widely hailed for his operas and oratorios. The operas are still mostly unknown except to connoisseurs. But if the Italian conductor and violinist Fabio Biondi has his way, the Scarlatti oratorios are going to enter the repertory.

Mr. Biondi has been taking Europa Galante, his dazzling early music ensemble, on a European and American tour to present Scarlatti's "Oratorio per la Santissima Trinità," composed in 1715. The tour arrived at the Mostly Mozart Festival on Thursday night to present the United States premiere of the oratorio at Alice Tully Hall before a nearly sold-out house. Europa Galante is well known from its recording of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons," which has sold half a million copies.

From the vibrant, crackling and assured performance on Thursday, you could sense how much Mr. Biondi and his troupe believe in this work. Historians used to view Alessandro Scarlatti as a tradition-bound figure whose music was brushed aside by the innovations of Bach and Handel a generation later. But "La Santissima Trinità" is a beguiling and refined work that puts a surprisingly wry spin on a staid allegorical libretto of unknown authorship.

Scored for five vocal soloists and an ensemble of strings and continuo keyboards, the oratorio depicts a heated debate among five characters — Faith, Divine Love, Theology, Infidelity and Time — over the nature of the Holy Trinity. This sounds like a dogmatic tract for the religious edification of the general public. But some recent scholarship suggests that oratorios like this were intended not as church music but as entertainments for the privileged.

"La Santissima Trinità" is rich with vividly operatic characterizations, instrument writing that offers solo strings ample chances to mingle with the virtuosic vocal solos, and a sophisticated musical harmonic language that keeps you on guard with its sly harmonic shifts.

But it is Scarlatti's droll attitude toward the allegorical characters that makes the work seem an entertainment. The bad guy in the story is Infidelity (the tenor Enrico Onofri), who in sputtering recitatives and sneering arias debunks the idea that three entities can reside in a single deity. Faith (the soprano Marta Almajano) tries to persuade Infidelity with music of sweet lyricism as well as flights of coloratura that indicate how much this alarming doubter flusters her. Faith is more grounded when paired in duets with Theology (the contralto Sonia Prina), a worldly figure who understands how much a leap the concept of the Trinity can seem.

Intervening in the argument is Divine Love (the mezzo-soprano Laura Polverelli), who in gusty vocal lines touched with a bit a smugness tries to explain the mystery from her exalted vantage point. Meanwhile, Time (the bass Roberto Abbondanza) treats Infidelity as another typical young kid who will come around in, well, time. Only toward the end, when Infidelity is still resisting, does Time break out in exasperated arias.

When the recalcitrant Infidelity finally acknowledges his error, this joyous oratorio ends not with a celebratory chorale but with Faith professing her pleasure in phrases of quiet satisfaction that just slip away over the concluding soft, pizzicato chords of the orchestra. The audience's ovation was so enthusiastic that Mr. Biondi and his ensemble repeated the charming finale of this inexplicably neglected work.

CLASSICS TODAY

                                      
ANTONIO VIVALDI
Concertos for mandolin, and for multiple instruments RV 555, 558, 532, 576, 564, 319, 425

Europa Galante
Fabio Biondi

Virgin Classics- 45527 2(CD)
Reference Recording - None for this coupling

This delicious collection contains two of Vivaldi's most remarkable creations, the Concertos RV 555 and RV 558, scored or vast ensemble including solo mandolins, recorders, oboes, chalumeaux, cellos, harpsichords, theorbos, viole ll'inglese, and something called "violini in tromba marina", which no one to this day is entirely sure about. And my, how Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante do play! At first the tempos sound excessively fleet, but when you hear how well these layers handle their solo episodes, and sense their joy in the excesses of Baroque instrumental writing and the opportunities for virtuosity that it offers, then it's practically impossible not to be swept away in the sheer excitement of it all. That said, if ou love this music you also should hear Leonard Bernstein's wonderful performance (on Sony) of Alfredo Casella's edition of RV 558, rescored for an equally extravagant ensemble of modern instruments.

The heart of this collection lies in the three concertos featuring solo mandolin (RV 532 actually requires two), which number among Vivaldi's most piquantly appealing inspirations. RV 576, scored for solo violin, two recorders, three oboes, and solo bassoon, also represents the composer at his most inventive and expansive, and the quality of the wind playing here is second to none in the period instrument world. In short, you will find in these performances more than sufficient evidence to refute the notion that Vivaldi wrote the same concerto 600 times. Or at all events, he only did it 593 times: these seven works remain outstanding for their character and individuality, and you won't find them better played or more immaculately recorded anywhere.

--David Hurwitz