Gypsy Baroque

opis:
Editor's info:
Vittorio Ghielmi, one of today’s most admired viola da gamba soloists, comes from a family of musicians (his brother founded Il Giardino Armonico with Giovanni Antonini). In parallel with his erudite and virtuoso readings of Marais or Graun, Vittorio Ghielmi is an artist who enjoys crossing borders. With his ensemble, Il Suonar Parlante, he seeks new musical languages and collaborates with leading figures of jazz (Uri Caine) and the masters of traditional music (Khaled Arman, Dhruba Ghosh). With Gypsy Baroque, he and his gypsy friends present a dazzling album bubbling over with life. He has gone to Transylvania in search of the gypsy music of the eighteenth century that was played on the frontiers of the Ottoman and Austrian Empires – music that influenced composers like Mozart and Haydn for their famous ‘Janissary’ pieces. For this recording, he places these gypsy tunes (only the melody is written) in perspective with orchestrations of the period. The Baroque specialists of his ensemble are joined by longstanding guest artists (the soprano Graciela Gibelli and the recorder player Dorothee Oberlinger) and traditional musicians like the Slovak violinist Stanislav Palúch and Marcel Comendant, a virtuoso exponent of the cimbalom and of improvisation. Going beyond the ‘documentary’ aspect, already fascinating, here is a genuine musical recreation!

Early Music Review:
Behind the almost film poster of a booklet cover with galloping horse feet across the dusty plains, we encounter an assortment of works, some extracted from their familiar Baroque settings, and re-cast in an arranged gypsy mode, some pieces as arrangements of more traditional themes. It is rather like taking a whistle-stop tour through Transylvania and beyond whilst looking through a shifting musical kaleidoscope at this earthy, spirited, often rustic, stomping music. There are moments of captivating beauty too, the two guest musicians provide extra colour Dorothee Oberlinger's sopranino recorder in one piece, and Shalev Ad El in the F. Benda work dazzle with their dextrous ease. The great gusto and joie de vivre of many of the other works shine through with the various soloists and a leader on great form. We pass through the foothills, the taverns, and country dances with the odd traditional song along the way. The front cover might have led to Telemann's Les courreurs (TWV55:Es1 or TWV55:B5) or even Les Scaramouches (third movement of La Changeante TWV55:g2). The second Telemann extraction and arrangement, Track 7 on this CD, has gone for a bagpipe effect on the gamba, when the French clearly implies Vielle i.e. hurdy-gurdy or Lyra mendicorm, which in the original suite is couched between Menuets I/II and a Sicilienne avec Cadenze, and has real rustic impact! Here the drone dominates, and the snappier rustic tempo wanes. This recording offers more of the trend towards Gypsyfication , taking us from the polite salons of formal Baroque concerts into the middle and Eastern European fields, crossing almost into Istambul. Some of the violin playing reminded me of the great Stéphane Grappelli with lashings of improvisatory zeal. I wasn't entirely won over by the Vivaldi, a tad more with the Mozart, the Benda was superb! Not to everyone's taste, but a colourful tour nonetheless.