Impeccable artistry from Italy’s oldest chamber ensemble.

QPAC Concert Hall
July 18, 2015

Founded in 1951, I Musici is Italy’s oldest chamber group, and also one of the most respected ensembles in existence today. Their 2015 visit to Brisbane is a part of the 2015 Queensland Music Festival, and an appreciative and enthusiastic audience warmly received the tight knit, twelve-part chamber group (who have, since their inception, existed without a conductor so as to ensure an egalitarian relationship among the twelve). When I was a child, my parents owned a Laserdisc of the group’s famous music video of The Four Seasons, shot in Venice in the 1970s, and as a result, hearing the group live was a somewhat nostalgic experience for me. However, the group’s performance of Vivaldi’s magnificent work was nevertheless fresh, dynamic and brimming with energy.

The group opened, appropriately, with Vivaldi, the composer with whom they are most regularly associated. The short, three movement Sinfonia in C Major, from the beginning of Vivaldi’s 1724 opera Il Giustino, opens with immediate energy in the sparkling, hurtling opening theme. The first movement gave way to a beautifully contrasting slow movement, an Andante featuring a melodic violin line with steady...