Crumbs, Janie and I went to the Wigmore Hall to see a lot of baroque concerts that season. Here’s another one we rated as:
superb.
Kontrabande were terrific. Had they been 1970s rock rather than 17th & 18th century baroque they might have been described as a supergroup. Dig this list of great names:
- Charles Humphries,
- Clare Salaman,
- Jane Norman,
- Katherine McGillivray,
- Richard Campbell,
- William Hunt,
- Laurence Cummings,
- James Johnstone,
- Elizabeth Kenny.
This is what they played that night:
- Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto for strings and basso continuo in D minor RV 128
- Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Cantata “Vestro Principi divino” RV 633
- Antonio Caldara – Sonata a tre Op 1 No 5
- Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Stabat Mater RV 621
- Antonio Caldara – Cantata “Soffri, mio caro Alcino”
- Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto for Lute in D major
- Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Cantata “Nisi Dominus”
I couldn’t find any YouTubes of Kontraband on-line, but the following one of Caldara sonatas and cantatas is very pleasing to the ear – I’d forgotten how much Caldara’s music pleased us that night: