In this intimate setting, Concerto Copenhagen presents a concert program brimming with elegance, drama, and musical playfulness.
Baroque music is anything but monotonous. In this concert program, Concerto Copenhagen showcases the rich stylistic and emotional range that characterizes the period—from the solemn, elegant, and graceful, through the exuberant, virtuosic, and refined, to the, quite simply, bizarre and experimental.
We find solemnity and elegance embodied in the work of the German-English Handel G.F. Handel. He combined Italian clarity, German counterpoint, French elegance, and English solemnity into his own unique musical language—and the sonata HWV 399 is a brilliant example of this.
Exuberance and virtuosity are never far away in the works of the Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi. His overture to the opera *L’Olimpiade*—which, as the title suggests, is set during the Olympic Games in ancient Greece—clearly foreshadows the theatrical drama that follows.
The musical chameleon of the Baroque era was the German composer G.P. Telemann, who could masterfully adopt any of the stylistic traits of the time as needed—and often played with and experimented with them as well. In the suite Les Nations, Europe’s cultural diversity is portrayed in musical form. Through stylized dances and character pieces, we are presented with portraits of various “nations”—featuring both refined French splendor, exuberant Italian energy, and robust German gravitas, all delivered with a twinkle in the eye. In the suite La Bizarre, on the other hand, Telemann plays with musical conventions and explores—and challenges—both its boundaries and our expectations, with both humor and finesse.
A concert that was equal parts grandeur, emotion, and playful musicality.