FiBO Concertante

Teodoro Baù. Photo: Martin Chiang.

Fri 10.03.2023 7.00 pm House of Nobility, Helsinki
The Residency Series at the House of Nobility

FiBO Concertante

The best of baroque by known and unknown composers

Händel–Graun–Telemann–Vivaldi–Geminiani

Teodoro Baù, viola da gamba
Anthony Marini, violin and leader
Finnish Baroque Orchestra

This spring’s first concert in FiBO’s residency series at the House of Nobility combines well known and popular works with more seldom performed treasures in a very surprising way! The concert soloist is the young Italian gamba player Teodoro Baù. He is naturally well known as a very skilful gamba player, but lately he has started performing music written for other instruments on the gamba, and this versatility and flexibility is apparent in his playing. Baù won the 6th Bach-Abel Competition in Köthen in 2015 and the MA Festival Competition in Brugge in 2021.

There are many well known names on the program, such as Händel, Vivaldi and Geminiani. The concert begins with Georg Friedrich Händel’s (1685-1759) Concerto grosso in B flat major. It’s part of Händel’s third opus, which was published without his permission or even knowledge. The publisher John Walsh had noticed the success of Arcangelo Corelli’s (1653-1713) concerti grossi and he combined already existing works by Händel into six “concerti”.

Johann Gottlieb Graun’s (1703-1771) Concerto in D minor for viola da gamba is a work that surely is unknown to almost everyone. Graun was a bridge builder between the baroque and the classical period, and the now performed concerto clearly belongs more to the baroque. Graun came from a musical family, but if the name Graun is already familiar it is probably because of his brother Carl Heinrich Graun (1704-1759), who was a singer and an even more famous composer. The first movement of the concerto is pure rock and roll, but with precursors to the galant style hiding in the background. The different affects in the second movement demand diverse orchestration in order for the delicate sound of the gamba to be heard. The third movement reminds us of Graun’s teachers, especially the virtuoso trills of Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) and the barriolage technique of Johann Georg Pisendel (1687-1755).

The concert ends with the well known melody La Folia, this instance in a version by Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762). Even though it borrows a lot from Corelli, who was Geminiani’s teacher, its abundant orchestration (which FiBO has expanded further by adding winds) and new variations give the classic a fresh look.

The concert is part of the residency series at the House of Nobility, which in Spring 2023 has the theme “Back to the roots”. In the first concert on 10th March, this means standard repertoire of a baroque orchestra. In the second concert on 29th April, the program consists of early baroque music and in the third concert on 19th May, the theme is interpreted as the concept of the element, in reference to for example nature or attributes of compositional styles.

Duration: 1 h 45 min (incl. intermission)

FiBOs artistic planner Anthony Marini introduces the concert at the House of Nobility at 6 pm to 6.30 pm.

FiBO Concertante

Finnish Baroque Orchestra's musicians Mar 10, 2023