Photo Credit: Red Priest Facebook
The terrific British ensemble Red Priest (named after the red-headed Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi) hasn’t played inMilwaukee for a decade but returned on Saturday evening for a red-hot concert at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. Any concert on the Early Music Now series never fails to deliver a near-capacity audience, even on an extremely cold night.
The program was titled “The Baroque Bohemians: Gypsy Fever from Campfire to Court.” Loosely defined Gypsy-themed music by various composers was delivered with showmanship, humor and lightness of spirit, qualities too rarely encountered in classical concerts.
A whole concert of featured recorder playing can become a bit monotonous because of lack of variety in volume and tone. Not so with the phenomenal Piers Adams playing. I can’t imagine any recorder player today surpassing his virtuoso musicianship on seven recorders of different sizes and ranges, sometimes even playing two instruments at once in an impressive stunt. Adams was also a charming spokesperson for the group, with a comedian-like light touch.
With a Gypsy theme, violin is inevitable, and Adam Summerhayes played fleet and flashy solo after solo with amazing technique and fluency. He is also a principal arranger for the group and has a knack for livening up music by Georg Telemann, George Handel or Vivaldi, sometimes veering into Bluegrass-like sounds. There was often a free, improvisatory spirit to the arrangements. The theme from The Godfather somehow made its way into Richard Nicholson’s “The Jew’s Dance.” The music of Uhrovské, a region in Slovakia, was featured twice in spicy Summerhayes arrangements. I never expected to hear dueling recorder and fiddle solos in music by Handel, but it was giddy fun.
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Angela East plays cello with lively gusto and a beautiful tone, captivating in soulful slow music, or in blazing fury, as in a Canzona by Polish composer Marcin Mielczewski. She was often the anchor for the antics of the other players. David Wright made much of his harpsichord parts, brilliantly conjuring frothy solos that were not unlike jazz at times. The harpsichord is not usually a colorful instrument, but Wright makes it so con brio.
