Concerto Copenhagen and Mikkel Bogh bring Baroque to the present with Vivaldi and lectures
The National Gallery of Denmark offers an evening of Baroque in the Present, where Vivaldi's famous The Four Seasons in an updated "staging" by Danish composer Karl Aage Rasmussen alternates with 3 "mini-lectures" entitled "The Seasons, the Elements and the Baroque Now" by Professor of Art History Mikkel Bogh.
Le quattro Stagioni, the four violin concertos depicting the year in Italy, are without comparison Vivaldi’s most famous and most played work. Many can hum along without necessarily knowing what it is they are humming to – and to even more people it is almost the definition of what classical music is.
In the hands of composer Karl Aage Rasmussen and Concerto Copenhagen, Vivaldi's notes remain recognizable. But the audience is surprised and kept in constant suspense as the music is broken up, melodies are accentuated and melodies burst forth, at once familiar and yet surprisingly new. All to create the illusion that we are hearing the familiar music for the first time and for it to re-emerge as current, relevant and contemporary for us listeners in 2022.
"The music swings as fresh as in 1725, when it was played for the first time. Virtuosic, super cool and totally captivating," wrote Politiken critic Thomas Michelsen in September 2019 about Rasmussen's Vivaldi, performed by Concerto Copenhagen.
The soloist in the famous violin concertos is Concerto Copenhagen's concertmaster Fredrik From, and the concert is conducted by Magnus Fryklund.