Date July 30, 2013

Reviewer rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Celebrazione!
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
Melbourne Recital Centre
July 27 and 28

Once you got past the soft-core bikie trappings – Rivendell-style boots, bum-hugging black pants, wrist brace, chest and finger bling – you found an expert and highly original interpreter of baroque music in Stefano Montanari, guest director and soloist in the latest Australian Brandenburg Orchestra subscription series concerts. Through a solid program of six concertos, none of them very familiar, Montanari took centre-stage and rarely stepped out of the spotlight – a kindred spirit with the orchestra’s artistic director and harpsichordist, Paul Dyer.

Saturday evening’s program was bookended by its most colourful music, a concerto for eight instruments by Veracini which involved pairs of trumpets and oboes, while the rest of the music-making – a concerto grosso each by Handel and Geminiani, a violin solo concerto by Brescianello, Telemann’s double concerto for flute and violin – demonstrated the skills of the ABO core of expert strings, although on this occasion their work seemed reserved; well-shaped, as usual, but secondary for substantial stretches. However, Montanari brought an extra crispness to the ensemble with an arresting short-bow attack in faster movements.

Flautist Melissa Farrow played a sinuous solo flute for the Telemann concerto with the director’s violin line a lively foil. Montanari showed at his best in the Brescianello E minor Concerto with some dazzling saltando finale passages. The most engrossing music came in two chaconnes, especially the Handel variations on the La Folia theme: the guest showed a high level of interpretative freedom, pressing at the boundaries but not over-stepping them.