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maltatoday, SUNDAY, 5 FEBRUARY 2017 40 This Week ALBERT STORACE MALTESE composer Reuben Pace was commissioned by the Valletta International Baroque Festival to write something inspired by the baroque. His Concertino for Gui- tar, harpsichord and Orchestra – performed at the Manoel Theatre on January 26 – is in line with Val- letta International Baroque Festi- val artistic director Kenneth Zam- mit Tabona's aim to commission new works by local composers. These will be the Festival's legacy and many were looking forward to what the new work would be like. It is a work which follows the baroque orchestral suite form: an Overture in different sections and a series of dance movements, some of which are very explicitly pro- grammatic – like the Maltais – and even when just with a dance form as a title, the composer always has something musically descriptive to say. Within that baroque frame- work the voice is his, and the way he plays with the instruments, the balance and texture are all of his own making. I found some of the music very appealing, and it was good to hear some highly contrasting orchestral effects. Johanna Beisteiner was solo guitarist and Joanne Camill- eri was solo harpsichord. Unfor- tunately, she was barely audible and at times completely inaudible. Although amplified, the guitar- ist could only be heard well when playing on her own. Perhaps more restraint on the orchestra could have been exercised. The work de- serves more than one hearing and it could easily grow on one. The Malta Philharmonic was under the direction of Michelle Cachia Castelletti who seems to have direction much in her blood and she could elicit some very fine results as in the opening work, a Suite which Mahler, well-known for his penchant to re-arrange works of all periods prior to his, drew from J. S. Bach's 2nd and 3rd orchestral suites, so among others there were the all-time favourites to be enjoyed: the Badinerie from Suite N. 2 (solo flute Rebecca Hall) and the Air from Suite N. 3. It is always interesting and pleasant to hear familiar things in a differ- ent musical "dress". The habit in which Arvo Pärt clothes his Col- lage über Bach is completely his, very distinctive, stark and at times harshly grating but always mys- terious and intense. The central movement marked Sarabande has a lovely oboe solo (performed by John Mc Donough). It provided some respite and relief from the very overpowering – even rather menacing – energy of the outer movements, respectively marked Toccata and Fugue. The concert continued with Res- pighi's Antiche arie e danze per liu- to, Suite N.3, or rather what he did and how he re-worked 16th/17th century music for strings. The music is in four movements taken from works by Garsi da Parma, Besard and Roncalli with one movement (the third) being by an anonymous composer. This was a really lovely work with Respighi's setting still retaining that distant and almost other-worldly charm which direction elicited to the full, not without some very deeply felt intensity which reached a climax in the concluding Passacaglia. Carmine Lauri was soloist, and a brilliant one at that, in Piazzolla's Cuatro Estanciones Porteños, with varying moods brought about by the changing seasons and never more than a shadow away from the omnipresent tango. The audi- ence filling up the Manoel could contain its enthusiasm no more and burst into premature ap- plause. The quick-witted Lauri said smilingly that he would per- form the last piece as an encore, to bigger applause before and after this "encore". Having read her credentials and heard her at the Manoel in Ruben Pace's Concertino, one expected better of Johanna Beisteiner when next day she gave a lunch-time recital of lute suites by J.S. Bach at the National Library. Popular in their transcription for guitar, the form is typically with Prelude and a number of dance move- ments. Hardly anything seemed to go right in the opening Suite in E Major, BNWV 1008a. The playing lacked fluency because of many a hesitation marked with rigidity and imprecision. Things seemed to begin to brighten up in the Ga- votte but little changed for the bet- ter after that. Applause at the end was polite rather than anything else but was much warmer after the second suite, the one in E mi- nor, BWV 996 which only met with some hitches in the Courante. The Suite in C minor BWV 997 was al- most slightly less fraught than the E Major. One suspected that the cold must have affected the per- former's fingers, which I think in the case of a guitarist would pre- sent bigger problems than to a key- board player. The evening's concert was at the Auberge de Provence, featuring the five-man ensemble from Seville. Two viole da gamba, harpsichord, baroque guitar and percussion performed a delightful programme dominated by the virtuosity of the gamba player Fahmi Alqhai. His brother Rami too plays the gamba only that it is a bigger instrument, a work of art. Rhythmic, colourful, fresh and joyfully infectious were the four pieces by Sanz arranged by Fahmi Alqhai and performed by the whole ensemble. They also performed another of Fahmi's ar- rangements, that for the anony- mous Variations upon El Cant des Ocells in which one could imag- ine fluttering birds and Fahmi's own Variations on a Joe Satriano theme, which reminded one of La Folia d'España. Earlier on the two brothers had performed M. de Ste. Colombe's aptly doleful Les Pleurs after which Fahmi Alqhai played a cou- ple of solos by Marin Marais (Les Voix Humaines and La Guitare). The whole ensemble continued with a piece called Las Vacas end- ing with Variations on Rameau's Les Sauvages, obviously Fahmi's arrangement. As an encore, the ensemble improvised upon a Pas- sacaglia. Before the concert, and much to Zammit Tabona's surprise, he was presented with a special award and donation for the Festival which he accepted on behalf of the Festival team. It was presented by two Spanish gentlemen, one from Mal- lorca (though based in Geneva) and Madrid who together run 'JuliBer', a socio-cultural society based in Geneva and who have been to all events of the Valletta International Baroque Festival since 2013. Valletta International Baroque Festival 2017 – inspired by baroque, and a world premiere Harpsichordist Joanne Camilleri and guitarist Johanna Beisteiner Violinist Carmine Lauri