Philharmonia Baroque in Berkeley. Steven Isserlis, violoncello
This was a marvelous concert on Sunday night October 12; the Philharonia Baroque never ceases to please! As a paid subscriber this year, i found in an envelope on my seat a gift CD voucher, which I exchanged for the opera by Handel, Teseo(Highlights) which I heard at the First Congregational Church, Berkeley, April 14, 2013. What a delightful surprise to have a gift for committing to a trio of performances this year into 2015. The orchestra has just returned from their summer tour where they performed at Lincoln Center at Tanglewood and in Norfolk, my favorite places in summer when we had our life in Litchfield, Connecticut.
Steven Isserlis was a surprise for me, and I could not help thinking as he played CPE Bach's Concerto for Violoncello in A major, Wq 172, and perhaps, especially, the Luigi Boccherini (1732-1805)Concerto for Violoncello No. 7 in G Major, G. 480 that he could have played at the courts at which Bach and Boccherini were favored in their time, in both the formalistic flair of his style and his passionate expressive content performed with subtlety and precision . He plays on a beautiful instrument, a Marquis de Corberon (Nelsova) Stradivarius of 1726, lent to him by the Royal Academy of Music. He was awarded a CBE in 1998 in recognition of his service to music, and in 2000 he received the Schumann Prize of the City of Zwickau. In 2013 he was one of only two living cellists to be inducted into Gramophone's Hall of Fame. So any guesses on the other: Yo Yo Ma?!
Boccherini a favorite of mine, who was born in Lucca Italy to a musical family started his career of composing and playing at age 14 at the imperial court in Vienna, but then found his most stable and secure position in Madrid in 1769, where the Infante Don Luis, younger brother of Charles III, insisted that Boccherini only compose for him.
A lovely evening...music is like church going, and in fact this was presented in a church; the music was very uplifting.
Steven Isserlis was a surprise for me, and I could not help thinking as he played CPE Bach's Concerto for Violoncello in A major, Wq 172, and perhaps, especially, the Luigi Boccherini (1732-1805)Concerto for Violoncello No. 7 in G Major, G. 480 that he could have played at the courts at which Bach and Boccherini were favored in their time, in both the formalistic flair of his style and his passionate expressive content performed with subtlety and precision . He plays on a beautiful instrument, a Marquis de Corberon (Nelsova) Stradivarius of 1726, lent to him by the Royal Academy of Music. He was awarded a CBE in 1998 in recognition of his service to music, and in 2000 he received the Schumann Prize of the City of Zwickau. In 2013 he was one of only two living cellists to be inducted into Gramophone's Hall of Fame. So any guesses on the other: Yo Yo Ma?!
Boccherini a favorite of mine, who was born in Lucca Italy to a musical family started his career of composing and playing at age 14 at the imperial court in Vienna, but then found his most stable and secure position in Madrid in 1769, where the Infante Don Luis, younger brother of Charles III, insisted that Boccherini only compose for him.
A lovely evening...music is like church going, and in fact this was presented in a church; the music was very uplifting.
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