A priest with flaming red hair, ranks of young girls blowing flutes and scraping away at every string instrument available, the Venetian lagoon sparkling green in the spring sunlight outside - that's the world of Antonio Vivaldi, composer extraordinaire who wrote so much music that some of it is presumed still waiting to be found, rotting away quietly in crypts of Renaissance churches a stone's throw from the Grand Canal.
The Berliner Barock Solisten (Berlin Baroque Soloists) is a group of some 14 Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra musicians keen to promote music from before the time of the great classical and romantic composers. They use modernized versions of authentic instruments and aim to play as closely as possible in period style, so far as it's known. Tomorrow night they appear at Taipei's National Concert Hall.
Leading them is Swiss-born Emmanuel Pahud, already at 37 a much recorded international flautist, and in addition principal flute with the Berlin orchestra. He's performed in Taiwan before, but tomorrow appears as part of the National Theater and Concert Hall's high-profile 20th anniversary celebrations.
It's important to note that the group consists of a collection of soloists - typical works of the period (the early 18th century) didn't support one highlighted individual but were written in "concertante" fashion, sharing the spotlight round among all, or at least many, of the players.
But the Taipei program is entirely devoted to works by Vivaldi, and he led the movement towards concertos featuring a single soloist in the now-standard manner. This can be clearly heard in his ultra-celebrated The Four Seasons with its prominent and almost crazily virtuosic solo violin part. It's all the more surprising that Vivaldi's music wasn't much known before the mid-20th century; swathes of it still remain unrecorded.
While following the standard practice of training up orphans abandoned at the conservatory door (thus simultaneously obtaining cheap labor and providing outcasts with a skill), Vivaldi broke the mould by building up ensembles composed entirely of females. In addition, his music was, for its time, startlingly charismatic.
Violent alternations of loud and soft, thrumming rhythms and skittering solo parts, simple melodies with accompaniment played in unison - these are facets of Vivaldi's populist, if sometimes repetitive, style. He aimed to make people sit up and listen, and also give his charity girls something attention-grabbing to play.
He usually succeeded, and tomorrow night's concert should offer an interesting amalgam of what was once very popular music played by some of the most scrupulous specialists in this particular period-style around.
Emmanuel Pahud and the Berliner Barock Solisten appear at Taipei's National Concert Hall tomorrow, beginning at 7.30pm. Tickets are NT$500 to NT$2,500. For more information call (02) 3393-9888.
- Bradley Winterton
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