SUMMARY

This concert by Gábor Boldoczki (Müpa Budapest’s Artist of the Year) and the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra invites you on a journey: with Italian Baroque concertos, they evoke the sparkling musical life of 17th- and 18th-century Italy. Their programme, based around Vivaldi and his contemporaries, puts the spotlight on Boldoczki’s charismatic trumpet playing while also providing countless opportunities for the musicians of the Polish Baroque ensemble to show their strengths in the areas of virtuosity and lyrical expression along with, above all, their captivating historical playing style. The beginnings of the Italian Baroque concerto’s journey go back to the last decade of the 17th century, so that is also where we have to start if we wish to follow the wide-ranging history of the genre. The style and structure of the emerging concerto form was inspired in no small measure by the diversity present among the members of the instrumental ensembles. Regardless of whether we imagine a court orchestra or a church one, it cannot be denied that there were significant differences between the musicians in terms of their skills and strengths. Composers, for their part, increasingly felt the need to respond to these differences. Why shouldn’t the most talented member of the ensemble be given a more decorated and complex part, and why not place a smaller group of musicians in the foreground relative to the rest of the orchestra? In many cases, the venues hosting the music also called for new solutions: if a large space lent itself to a more powerful sound, a string orchestra supplemented with a trumpet or trumpets could achieve this more effectively.

No matter whether there are one or more soloists standing out from the orchestra, the works being performed tonight are all built on the contrasts between an orchestra’s different strengths. Composers usually composed the featured parts for soloists whose abilities they knew, so that they could confidently entrust them with challenging tasks. At the same time, we should not forget that these two roles – those of the composer and the virtuoso musician – were not sharply separated, for a long time composers were also trained instrument players, and even the top instrumentalists often composed concertos. This time, Boldoczki and the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra will paint a tableau of the Italian Baroque concerto with works by Antonio Vivaldi, Evaristo Felice Dall’Abaco, Tomaso Albinoni, Francesco Manfredini and Giuseppe Torelli, on which common traditions and the endless possibilities inherent in diversity are all outlined together.