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The joy of music playing Bucharest
Romanian Athenaeum
09/09/2005 -
Bach : Four Suites for orchestra, BWV 1066 to 1069
King’s Consort
Bucharest
Romanian Athenaeum
09/10/2005
Bach : The six Brandenburg Concertos, BWV 1046 to 1051
King’s Consort
The joy of music playing was the main feeling enveloping the public of the series of concerts "by midnight" given by the King's Consort. Unknown in Romania until now, this ensemble will remain for a long time in the memory of those who re-listened The four Suites for orchestra and The six Brandenburg Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach.
There exists in the approach to music and the performance of these wonderful instrumentalists a non-dissimulated passion to communicate their art, their thoughts, expressed by an intoxicating joy of playing. There is a non-conformity in their manner of playing that impresses in a pleasant way and makes us to renounce any pre-judgements at the moment of their entrance on the stage, apparently in disorder, the conductor somewhere, among them. They become ours and we become theirs. I think that only a conventional rigour made them - I have the courage to say - not to descend from the stage amongst the audience. But isn't conductor Robert King's every gesture expressing a child's joy at playing ?
King's Consort (an ensemble using original instruments with their old, perfumed sound) concieves Bach's music starting from the rhythmic perfection, from the vivid tempi up to the most accurate polishing, chiselling as though done by some hypothetical jewellers. Maybe the English ensemble did not construct its own sound, like their academic colleagues (St. Martin-in-the–Fields), but the baroque atmosphere is present with all its refined details, specific sensitivity and transparency.
And there is another aspect, not negligible. Individually taken, all the musicians are very gifted players. First of all, I refer to the extraordinary cembalist who, in his solo from the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto (D major, BWV 1050), demonstrated an exceptional virtuosity. And what about the oboe, flute or bassoon players ? An Italian visitor next to me whispered in amazement: Indimenticabile! (Unforgettable!). I nodded my head in silence, approvingly: So true !
Costin Popa
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