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Alix Goolden Performance Hall
January 13, 2007
It is a central tenet of faith of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (http://www.venganza.org/) that the increase in temperatures worldwide over the last two centuries coincides with a reduction in the number of pirates.
In other words: Pirates reduce Global Warming.
Which, especially in view of the recent weather, made another excellent reason for welcoming Red Priest, the latest guests of the Early Music Society of the Islands, and their swashbuckling brand of virtuosity: their playing may not have reduced the temperature in the hall on Saturday night, but if it helped, in some mysterious way, to ameliorate climate change, then more power to them.
(And it you think that is unlikely, how about Stephen Harper's Clean Air Act?)
Saturday was undoubtedly not a night for purists, but a packed Alix Goolden Performance Hall seemed not to care one jot, as the four piratically-dressed - 'pirate' is one of those words which seem to have few, if any genuine synonyms - musicians dazzled, charmed and amused them by turns.
Their programme was a superb mix of the familiar in unfamiliar garb and the plain obscure.
Into the former category came "Albinoni's" Adagio, Vitali's Chaconne and Vivaldi's "La Tempesta di Mare" Concerto, RV433 (I append the catalogue number because Vivaldi composed the concerto with this title three times - a busy man, our Antonio - the other two, since you ask, being RV98 and RV570).
RV433 was originally scored for solo flute and strings; as group spokesman Piers Adams refreshingly put it, their version of the concerto "is not exactly as the composer intended - but this doesn't matter from a musicological point of view, due to the fact that the composer is dead."
In fact, at various times the solo line appeared to pass among all four members of the group - a real testament to their technical skills - and the concert provided a spectacular close to the evening.
The programme's other storm, "La Burrasca", came in the guise of Giovanni Paulo Simonetti's Sonata Op.5, No.2 - which, I think you'll agree, comes under the heading of obscure enough for most of us.
Again, the four musicians dazzled with their sheer technical agility, particularly Piers Adams, a player of such charisma as to make one entirely reconsider one's opinion of the recorder. The holey stick regularly assaulted by infants when I was young had no discernible relation to the expressive, infinitely flexible instrument as played by Adams.
Which is not to say that his colleagues were any less impressive, merely that I had lesser expectations of the recorder - but no more.
One could easily expound at length about Red Priest's stylishly irreverent approach to their music, but I shall refrain.
What I will say is that Red Priest have obviously hit upon a formula which appeals not just to traditional early music enthusiasts.
Theirs is a Class Act indeed, but the secret of their success, surely, is the tremendous musicianship they bring to the party, without which the act could fall very flat indeed.
In short, this was as entertaining an evening as I've spent in some considerable time.
All that and a reduction in Global Warming.
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