L'Arpeggiata at Carnegie Hall

L'Arpeggiata's artistic director and theorbist, Christina Pluhar

 

I went to L'Arpeggiata's Via crucis concert at Carnegie Hall last night and I wrote about it for Bachtrack:

Though they play Baroque music, the ensemble L’Arpeggiata is more like a jazz band than a traditional orchestra. Anchored by a continuo (rhythm section?) led by artistic director and theorbist Christina Pluhar, they are joined by various other instrumentalists, singers, and even dancers, fitting each of their projects. Using improvisation and felicitous combinations of traditions, they explore various forgotten repertoires from the Neapolitan tarantella to, on Thursday evening at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, the Baroque mystery play.

You can read the full review here. As I said, my only real misgiving was that for a group that ostensibly values spontaneity the concert at times the concert felt too close to a carbon copy of their CD. But it was a great program. One way that CD was slightly better was in its singers--Philippe Jaroussky was sadly absent last night (he's on the CD but in general Philippe Jaroussky would be a fab addition to, like, every concert ever) and soprano Raquel Andueza, though OK, was not up to Nuria Rial's contributions on the CD. I did, however, really like Lucilla Galeazzi.

They are playing two more concerts at Carnegie, tonight and tomorrow.

Photo copyright Marco Borggreve.