Word: continuos
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GREEK GALORE. The Award-winning Ensemble Chanterelle, which specializes in highly dramatic 17th century music for voice and continuo instruments performs a special evening of Greek music, myth and poetry presented by The Greek Institute. Titled The Heirs of Orpheus, the program explores the connections between ancient Greek myths and drama and the emotionally charged music of the 17th century. Works featured include songs by Henry Purcell, the Monteverdi’s opera L’Orfeo, and Nicholas Lanier’s dramatic lament of Hero, “Nor com’st thou...
...bodies flowering into tall, lyrical stalks. The melancholy viola da gamba and the haunting lirone shaped like early venuses. The blockflutes, the recorders with their warm and woody sound. The tiny baroque guitar, cradled like a courageous lap-dog, and the harpsichords, the harpsichords: banquet tables of the basso-continuo; two banks of oars pulling across the river...
...This is the wealth and the worth of the opera--the strange and elegant improvisations of the continuo accompaniment, the endless intricacies and expression of the baroque orchestra...
...wear brocaded robes and the chaste are no less adorned. What matters is the glittering recitative--the strange power of the counter-tenor and his haunting arias. The characters and their conflicts are secondary amusements; harmless distractions as each singer is guided or goaded into glory by the basso continuo. What matters is the music...
After the intermission, Cunningham got her solo moment with Marais' Suite No. 4 in A minor for Viola da Gamba and Basso Continuo, prefacing her performance with a definition of what a viola da gamba is-a string instrument more closely related to the guitar than the violin and its ilk, despite its name and appearance--and a discussion of the "softer side" of baroque music, explaining that baroque music was played at a softer volume than music today is. She then proceeded to play the quietest piece in the program, with a rich and hazy sound which made...