Say what you will about Los Angeles Times critic Mark Swed's review
of the English Concert in this morning's paper, it at least
concentrated on the important stuff. Here's the beginning:
The battle of the bands did not go so far as theorbos at 10 paces.
It’s a good thing too. Those strikingly tall 17th century lutes
could probably make decent weapons. And frankly, the outcome of a
match between London’s two best-known period instrument groups,
both of which appeared in Southern California in recent days,
wouldn’t have been pretty.
Under its burly music director, Richard Egarr, the Academy of
Ancient Music, which played Bach’s “Brandenburg” Concertos on
Friday in Orange County, is a band of bruisers. Dressed in black,
they attacked Bach with raw, macho, exhilarating power and not a
lot of finesse. The AAM’s theorbo player strummed furiously,
rocking the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall as if he were
the Bruce Springsteen of the long lute.
The English Concert, now led by Harry Bicket, a popular opera
conductor, came to Walt Disney Concert Hall on Tuesday. There was
a theorbo to be seen but not to be heard, so delicately was this
lute plucked. But the player fit right in with the formal, polite
ensemble, whose members sported white ties and tails. Bach, on the
first half of the program, was played as if it were fragile musical
china set out for teatime. Handel, after intermission, had more
drama.
The rest of the review can be seen at:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/03/david-daniels-
a.html
I find it interesting, BTW, that AAM would bring a theorbo along on a
tour apparently devoted exclusively to the Brandenburgs. I wasn't at
the concert (or the English concert one, though I wrote the program
notes for it) but it appears to be a theorbo, not an archlute, from
the picture accompanying Swed's review of that concert:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/03/academy-of-
anci.html
Does someone have a positive ID on the player? Bill Carter, perhaps?
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
