Tag: Avi Avital

Avi Avital With The Venice Baroque Orchestra, Wigmore Hall, 22 December 2018

Why, in the name of all that is good and pure, did I subject us to yet another nightmarish journey to the Wigmore Hall just before Christmas?

Did I not learn my lesson three years ago from that Brad Mehldau concert of Bach music?

Brad Mehldau, Wigmore Hall, 17 December 2015

Clearly not. In my own defence, I thought that activity would have died down by the Saturday before Christmas. For us, work-wise, it had – but not for the shops and shoppers in neighbouring Oxford Street. Who knew?

In any case, I was very keen to see and hear this concert. Janie and I had very much enjoyed the Avital Meets Avital concert some eighteen months earlier:

Avital Meets Avital, Wigmore Hall Lates, 23 June 2017

So I was fascinated to see how Avi Avital got on with Baroque music and sort of glossed over the proximity to Christmas when I booked this Venice Baroque Orchestra concert.

Suffice it to say that the journey was suitably awful for Janie and me to agree, “never again at this time of year”…again. Yet, also again, the pain soon turned to pleasure when we listened to the music and watched the musicians.

The Wigmore Hall was full to the rafters for this one, which is always good to see. Here is the Wigmore Hall stub on this concert.

Mostly Vivaldi, but we got to hear some Geminiani (of the Corelli variety) and one piece by a later Neapolitan composer, Giovanni Paisiello. Avi told a fruity anecdote about the difference between Venetians and the hyper-romantic Neapolitans.

Avi Avital also told an amusing anecdote from his early childhood about falling in love with the Winter concerto from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, only to find out some years later that the piece he had actually fallen in love with was the Summer Concerto. Avi claims, it wasn’t until he went to Venice to work with the Venice Baroque Orchestra, that he actually experienced a violent summer thunder storm and realised why that stormy-sounding music represented summer rather than winter.

But the most interesting anecdote, which Avi told right at the end of the concert, was the fact that the concert very nearly didn’t happen at all. Most of the musicians were stranded as a result of the Gatwick Airport Drone Incident, which had required Avi’s team and the Wigmore Hall to work tirelessly rerouting musicians to enable the concert to go ahead. And we thought we’d had a stressful journey to that concert!

The orchestra are clearly seasoned exponents of this flavour of baroque music, although we felt that one or two members of the orchestra were not at their best that evening; perhaps travel or even life weary.

Avi Avital is an extraordinary, charismatic virtuoso of his instrument – his quality shines through all he plays. Yet, Janie and I both felt, some of the pieces that have been transposed from violin virtuoso pieces lose some of their musical quality through the transposition. Not for want of fine playing, but simply because the mandolin is a more limited, metal-stringed instrument. I enjoyed the change in some of the transposed pieces, but really missed the violin’s colour on others.

Below is a YouTube of a lovely, similar performance from a concert in Seoul a few week’s earlier:

Avital Meets Avital, Wigmore Hall Lates, 23 June 2017

Avital Meets Avital

We really like these Wigmore Lates concerts and we really like interesting jazz/fusion music at the Wig.

So when I saw this concert promoted in the Wigmore Hall brochure – click here for all the information retained on the site – I figured that it would almost certainly be right up our street.

…Moroccan and North African sounds, folk and classical traditions, Israeli harmonies and Mediterranean rhythms to create a musical melting pot…

How right I was.

I hadn’t worked out, from that promotional material, that “Avital Meets Avital” is a relatively new combo, nor did it cross my mind that the two Avitals might not be connected to each other by blood. They just happen to be two musical guys who share the same surname who discovered that they make great music together and formed a fine musical friendship and combo.

The tour seems to be a promotional one, in part to promote their album, which was released a couple of weeks ago – click here (or the picture above) for more details on that.

The concert was wonderful.

The hall was pretty crowded, considering that the combo is fairly new and the Friday late slot does not always do well unless the act is well-known/a local favourite.

The group’s love of music and music-making together came across very nicely. In particular, Omer Avital (right of picture) came across as a real fun-loving showman – but in a good way. Janie is often put off by flamboyant musicians, but this was just the right balance of joyous music making, sharing that joy with the audience, yet relentlessly high-quality, professional musicianship.

Indeed all four of them are superb musicians.

Avi Avital must be one of the leading virtuosi of the mandolin – some of the intricate work he was doing, especially on the smaller of the two mandolins he played, was spellbinding.

The pianist, Yonathan Avishai, was mostly playing (in effect) continuo, but when he got the opportunity to extemporise with a solo, his ability as a musician became very clear.

The drummer, Itamar Doari, looked as mad as a box of frogs (or at least on a different cerebral  planet) when he played – it was a wonder he didn’t spontaneously combust Spinal Tap style during his solos. Strangely though, in the bar afterwards, he looked surprisingly sane and normal.

There was a good vibe in the bar after the show, with a jazz pianist playing. It was good to see all four performers (as well as a reasonable chunk of the audience) joining in the post concert fun – that doesn’t always happen after these Wigmore Lates concerts.

I downloaded the Avital Meets Avital album as soon as we got home and we have listened to it several times over the past few days. I would recommend the album highly, but would also suggest that you get to see this combo live if you can – the recordings cannot quite do justice to the uplifting sense you get from seeing this combo perform live.