Chamber music exudes passion, not mellowosity
by John Petric, for The Other Paper
 
An acquaintance of mine recently commented about how I’d gone noticeably “mellow” in my music writing. WTF? “Sure, going to all that classical music at the Southern, right?”
 
I was honestly a bit surprised. Because if there’s one word I wouldn’t use to describe the superb chamber music I’ve been frequenting there since last fall, it’s mellow. To my ears, it’s the exact and extreme opposite: passionate to these maturing ears, the way rock was to me as a teenager and young man.
 
In fact, at one point during Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante’s intense Italian baroque concert at the Southern Theatre on Saturday, the violin play was so non-stop overwhelming that I wrote in my program margin: “Surely those notes aren’t written down—there’s too many!”
 
There wasn’t too much reflection going on in Fabio’s choice of material by composers Telemann, Sammartini, Nardini, Corelli and Locatelli. Instead, an unreserved energy the likes of which I haven’t heard in any of the quartets this past season exploded off the Southern’s stately stage.
 
Hardly moody stuff, much was melodically muscular when it wasn’t being hyperactive, the violins dancing melodies like maniacal ballerinas. Again, the sheer passion of Biondi and his gang of virtuosic Italians on period instruments (violins, harpsichord, cello, stand-up bass and the guitar-like theorbo) was staggering.
 
In fact, it was a bit much. Not until the second half’s Nardini concerto did things slow down, his adagio being the best thing of the night. A tad light, a bit melancholy, it turned inward. Even then, I wouldn’t’ve called it mellow.
 
Next up in the world of Chamber Music Columbus: John O’Conor, pianist, March 6.