Albert G. Storace the first concert of the Easter Weekend, In Stile Barocco. The Baroque Violin & Viola solo recital by Sarah Spiteri was held at Savina Square in Victoria.
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The Festival’s Easter Weekend started off with what was dubbed “In stile barocco”. The entire programme in this late Saturday morning event featured music ranging from Bieber to J.S. Bach.
Sarah Spiteri needs no introduction to local music lovers. She is a very proficient performer on violin and viola, is an important figure within the Valletta Baroque Ensemble, is a teacher too. Not to mention her straightforward approach to the music and easy way she engages with an audience.
She always introduces the works she performs. She is an avid researcher and included in her programme were works she fished out from many an archive bringing to life works by obscure yet important players in the field.
The first work she performed was Passacaglia in G Major by Heinrich Bieber (1644-1704). This is one of the [Rosary] Mysteries Sonatas of which there must have been fifteen. Bieber is pretty well-known and his Passacaglia is a refreshing work which Sarah Spiteri performed with warmth.
Moving on to her next work, she performed a work which materialised by means of her research. It was by Nicòla Mateis (1650-1714) He was active in London where he did his best to expose to the public the Italian style in lieu of the predominant Frenxh style. His Suite in A from Ayres for the violin, Bk 2 begins with a quaint initial movement marked Passaggiorotto. The second was also marked rather strangely Movimento incognito a bit mysterious but nothing to worry about more so because the concluding movement was a frank Fantasia.
Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) was a bit of a trouble-maker before settling down as important innovator and virtuoso performer. His Sonata for violin solo in B minor from 30th Sonate Piccole was in an unusual 3-movement form which was Slow/Fast/ Fast rather than F/S/F The opening slow-ish Andante was followed by two well-defined shades of Allegro: one assai and the other Affettuoso one with energetic warmth.
That the super-prolific Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) would be on the programme was no surprise. He championed the viola, Sarah Spiteri’s second instrument, although it was his Fantasia n.7 for solo violin which she performed, and to full satisfaction too. Telemann was the first to write concertos for the viola.
Another composer who championed another wrongfully neglected instrument, the cello, was Domenico Gabrielli (1651-90). As Ms. Spiteri said, he believed that the cello should play an important prominent part not just being part of the basso continuo but also as a fully-fledged instrument. She performed his Ricercare in G Major for solo viola. It was a musical search for a work developing along the way until it could find an ideally good conclusion.
This was probably the first live performance of a work by Gabrielli in these islands. So must have been the Suite by Mateis (see above) and also the case with the last work on the programme also the second for solo viola. One could add another “first” thanks to Sarah Spiteri’s research. This was the Suite in G Major BWV 1007 by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). Fans of J. S. Bach would immediately recognise the work as the first of Bach’s famous set of six solo Cello Suites. Bach arranged the first one for solo viola. I had never heard this version and grew to like it more and more as it went from the Prelude to a series of dances which normally “inhabit” Baroque suites.
Thus ended this lovely pre-prandial appetiser.
Colin Attard concluded the event by thanking all present for their attendance, sponsors for their support and the Rev. Mgr. Joseph Vella Gauci, Rector of Savina Church. There is so much to say about it that one day I should post something in that regard.
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