The Latitude 37 trio has added its refined voice to Australia’s small but vibrant early music community, with a debut release that adheres to much the same winning formula as the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s Baroque Tapas, also featuring Laura Vaughan. One senses the ensemble’s inventiveness as a whole as well as the personalities of the players and their guests. Their rapport is most rewarding in Salaverde’s Canzon a due, where Julia Fredersdorff’s sweet-toned Baroque violin interlaces with the drier gamba passages, sensitively underscored by Donald Nicolson on chamber organ. The overall selection is perhaps more solemn than that of Tapas, as in the opening regal procession of Diego Ortiz’s Passamezzo antico and two pieces by Caccini and Palestrina, with Siobhán Stagg’s light soprano beaming through clouds. Some tracks replace gamba with the lirone, an Italian continuo instrument with a unique, gossamer sheen to its plaintive chords.  There’s plenty to liven up proceedings: Guy du Blêt’s varied percussion is essential to the success of the album in exuberant spagnoletta dance rhythms and a rustic Kapsberger passacaglia. Improvised, virtuosic flourishes over ground bass are executed by all players with flair. A small world, but one full of discovery. Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

Paul Dyer explores The Four Seasons‘ French connection in a Baroque cover version. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Festival Baroque Australia showcases local and national talent in a rare Handel opera. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The Italian early music group Accordone was founded by members of L’Arpeggiata and trades in similar repertoire, reinventing Neapolitan folk music with a captivating blend of period-instrument Baroque precision and improvisatory abandon. The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra has toured with both ensembles in Australia, which begs the question: why is this style so popular? Well, there’s plenty of dancing. Accordone’s new album is bursting with ritual tarantellas and jaunty peasant songs. The sunny Mediterranean chitarro guitar adds to the zest of castanets and tambourines, but the incessant stamping rhythms can become exhausting. If percussive excess tires the ear, the voice of Marco Beasley soothes it. Soulful and supple, his is an instrument ideally attuned to the album’s serenades and lullabies. Nowhere is the tenor more beguiling than in the sensual chromatic descent of Volumbrella, caressed by the velvet sheen of a viol quartet. Pino de Vittorio’s more brazen, traditional folk style is an excellent foil to Beasley’s sweeter tone in theatrical duets. And those rolled Italian Rs add still more rustic bite! These vibrant songs are based around the life and times of the infamous Fra’ Diavolo (Brother Devil), an 18th-century freedom fighter against the French occupation of Naples. Judging by the lyrics, Accordone…

For many the fortepiano is an unfamiliar soundworld, but it just might help us hear Mozart’s genius afresh. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Viola da gamba player Laura Vaughan introduces her ensemble’s debut album of Italianate jewels. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Fiona Campbell breathes new life into an unfairly neglected Baroque masterpiece.

Paul Dyer talks to Limelight about his upcoming debut with WASO and the art of performing Baroque repertoire with a modern orchestra. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in