Review by Tweet of events on the evening of 5 March 2014

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

6 March (updated, with some credits, 8 March)

19:30 Radio 3 Live in Concert: The Monteverdi Choir's 50th anniversary concert, featuring Monteverdi's Vespers. http://t.co/w2u8Fn3ESE
— On BBC Radio 3 Now (@onradio3now) March 5, 2014

Martin Handley in Cambridge talks down the line to @BBCInTune with King's College Chapel behind. #R3LiveInConcert pic.twitter.com/yInfDsYgGk
— BBC Radio 3 (@BBCRadio3) March 5, 2014

Heresy, but somehow Sir John E. G. doesn't do it : his @bbcproms Brandenburgssounded fragmented, and Vespers of 1610 disparate, not a whole
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

Are Monteverdi's Vespers 1610 meant to sound like raw baroque mixed with English choral tradition, 19th C oratorio, Brahms German Requiem ?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

Conducting an instrumentalist (or two) and singer's completely redundant, Sir John E. G. ! In Bach Passions, do you conduct the recitative ?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

If you parallel-park in Norwich, watch out for directions from Sir John E. G., as he conducts you from a podium in @Kings_College Chapel...
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

If, in all seriousness, you know @Kings_College Chapel, can you imagine someone trying to conduct musicians in the choir through the arch ?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

Happy 50th Birthday, Monteverdi Choir! @mco_london @BBCRadio3 #KingsCambridge pic.twitter.com/u2EJVWBF71
— Eleanor Minney(@EllieJMinney) March 5, 2014

All part of the threatricality/ spectacle of a 50th anniversary concert, but, with a singer and string-player either side, it sounded grand
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

Just as did, later on, the antiphonal effects, between chapel or side-chapel and antechapel - it felt as though it could be St Mark's, 1610
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

And some wonderful soloists, which one imagined could have been heard in Renaissance Venice, also exploiting positions in the split choir...
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

Superb performances from Silvia Frigato(soprano), EmanuelaGalli(soprano), Alexander Ashworth (bass), Nicholas Mulroy(tenor) ->
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 8, 2014

And, from The English Baroque Soloists, Kati Debretzeni(violin), Anne Schumann (violin), Valerie Botwright(Violone) ->
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 8, 2014

EvangelinaMascardi, JakobLindberg & JosiasRodriguez Gandara(chittarone), & Jamie Savan, Bork-FrithjofSmith, Richard Thomas (cornetti)
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 8, 2014

All in all, lovely for the staging - reminiscent of Robert Hollingworth(@ifagiolini) with Tallis/ Striggiohere - and in places...
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

But, Sir John E. G., just too raggedy in its style to come close to resembling a unity, @THEAGENTAPSLEY regrets having to suggest. :(
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

What does that Italian at the top of the music mean?

More views of - or after - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

14 February

An example. Does striggio mean:

(a) Excitedly - a bit like a tremolo?

(b) The opposite of sforzando?

(c) There's a hole in the score here, where the composer dropped his or her cigarette on the manuscript original?

(d) Just for the strings, i.e. the players are encouraged to sound really stringy?

(e) He's that other composer of a choral work in forty parts?


And why Italian anyway? Not always, because some composers (e.g. Schumann, Dvorak) shun it, but is it really the language of music (or, even, Music)?

And, if you thought None of these in (a) to (e), above, then you're probably right, and 'that Itlian' is Carlo Maria Giulini, ready to conduct the piece...


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