Festival Highlights
Among the most successful Lufthansa Festivals of recent years, "Fountain of the Baroque" saw our largest audience since 2007 and featured many remarkable performances by some of Europe's most gifted Baroque performers.
We would like to extend our warmest thanks to the artists who performed for us, to the management of St. John's, Smith Square, the Dean of Westminster and the Rector of St Peter's Eaton Square for allowing us to perform in their beautiful churches, and, most of all, to our audience without whose generous enthusiasm and support the Lufthansa Festival could not continue.
The 2010 Lufthansa Festival finished on 22 May with a joyous double celebration: the role played by Corelli in the perfection of the concerto grosso was marked in spectacular style by an ambitious 50-player gathering of the European Union Baroque Orchestra, themselves celebrating their own 25th anniversary. Directed with flair and brilliance by violinist Enrico Onofri, they also took part in a Radio 3 Discovering Music programme exploring Corelli's key role in the history of orchestral music.
European Union Baroque Orchestra in rehearsal
This recreation of the splendour of 17th-centry Rome was a fitting way to round off our 'Fountain of the Baroque' theme, which took the 400th anniversary of Monteverdi's sublime Vespers, one of the best-loved works in the Baroque repertoire, as the starting-point for a celebration of the leading role taken by Italian composers in the creation of the Baroque style. Thus Monteverdi's position as an iconic figure of the Baroque was reflected not just in the Vespers itself - performed on the opening night by the award-winning Italian ensemble La Venexiana - but also in a programme of his cutting-edge dramatic music by I Fagiolini. I Fagiolini's ever-inventive director Robert Hollingworth also gave this year's highly entertaining and informative Lufthansa Lecture: 'Monteverdi the Modern Man'.
Listen to an exceprt of La Venexiana performing Monteverdi's Vespers (4m 45s):
There was music by other movers and shakers from across the Alps: vocal trendsetters Pergolesi and Alessandro Scarlatti were honoured by Fabio Bonizzoni's superb ensemble La Risonanza; and Vivaldi's ever-seductive charms were let loose by the UK's own thrilling Vivaldi specialists, La Serenissima.
Images from La Resurrezione performed by Gabrieli Consort & Players
The daring and fantasy of the earliest violin masters were revealed in concerts by Festival debutants Baroque Fever from Denmark and Enrico Onofri's IMAGINARIUM Ensemble from Italy; the young Handel's brilliant assimilation of Italian manners shone out in his stunning Roman oratorio, La Resurrezione, in a performance by Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort & Players; and the irrepressible genius of Domenico Scarlatti was on show in a rare London recital by French harpsichord virtuoso Pierre Hantaï.
Listen to an excerpt from Baroque Fever's performance (4m 02s):
Listen to an excerpt from Handel's La Resurrezione performed by Gabrieli Consort & Players (2m 43s):
And as ever, there was a trip to Westminster Abbey, where the Abbey's choir revelled in two great favourites of Italian sacred music, Vivaldi's Gloria and Handel's Dixit Dominus.
All this, plus festival walks, a 'Canaletto' boat trip and a brand new Festival Friends organisation too!
Truly a celebration of the best in Italian style and innovation.
Lindsay Kemp
Artistic Director
Images and audio excerpts are subject to copyright.
| The Lufthansa Festival wishes to thank BBC Radio 3 for permission to use excerpts from their recordings. |
