Monday August 24, 2009

Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival
Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto in C major for violin, 2 cellos and strings, RV 561
Daniel Ching, violin; Eric Gaenslen, Joshua Gindele, cellos; Sandy Yamamoto, Henry Gronnier, violins; John Largess, viola; Jonathan Brin, cello; Owen Lee, double bass, Kathleen McIntosh, harpsichord (8/3/06) 10:21
Arcangelo Corelli: Concerto Grosso in C minor, Op.6 No. 3
Festival Ensemble (8/3/06) 12:00
Antonio Vivaldi: Flute Concerto in D major, RV 428 (Goldfinch)
Eugenia Zukerman, flute; Timothy Fain, Henry Gronnier, violins; Thomas Diener, viola; Eric Gaenslen, cello; Owen Lee, double Bass; Kathleen McIntosh, harpsichord (8/3/06) 10:54
Johann Sebastian Bach: Double Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043
Timothy Fain, Daniel Ching, violins; Festival Ensemble (8/3/06) 14:54
Also, Charley anticipates next month's Moab Music Festival.
Francis Poulenc: Finale from Piano Sextet
Steven Mayer, piano; Tim Day, flute; Marilyn Coyne, oboe; Eric Thomas, clarinet;
John Steinmetz, bassoon; Neil DeLand, horn 5:17
Moab Music Festival NCA 9/13/97

A bauble:
Called “the virtuoso of violin virtuosos and the true Orpheus of our time,” Corelli spent most of his life at the Rome residence of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, a nephew of Pope Alexander VIII. Corelli's Monday concerts were the center of Roman musical life. While playing, said a colleague, “it was usual for his countenance to be distorted, his eyes to become as red as fire and his eyeballs to roll in agony.”
A pupil recalled that “Corelli regarded it as essential to the ensemble of the band that their bows should all move exactly together, all up, all down,” resulting in “an amazing effect to the eye as well as the ear.”
After a successful career, during which his first five published collections brought him worldwide acclaim, Corelli made some disastrous tours outside of Rome. He returned to find that a new violinist named Valentini had usurped his audiences. Charles Burney theorized that “all these mortifications threw him into such a state of melancholy and chagrin, as was thought...to have hastened his death.”