Two violinists. Juan Munoz shifts his weight from his front leg to the back, Patricio Rojas closes his eyes intensely. Their arms move faster and their necks appear to go into a spasm. Telemann’s Canonic Sonata no.3 distinctly cuts through the night.
Two violinists. Juan Munoz shifts his weight from his front leg to the back, Patricio Rojas closes his eyes intensely. Their arms move faster and their necks appear to go into a spasm. Telemann’s Canonic Sonata no.3 distinctly cuts through the night.
Then step-by-step Cobian’s furious tango, Los Mareados, turns love into a thick, full bodied, tangible air, and I can see why Pope Pius X banned it around 1913 after a private viewing. Then silence.
The Rhodes String Orchestra takes the stage with Elgar’s Elegie for String Orchestra. It’s a vibrato of melodies with surprising irregular dips and falls, slow and deep, with a build up, deep and slow, and more join in.
A pizzicato by the cellos; brief strokes from the entire orchestra cry Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons into being. Piazzolla’s Buenos Aires winter is not very cold, and generally has more rain. The orchestra reappears from behind their musical veil of silence, pulled away at once by the contrabass and cello, even piano, with the violins on their tail and then suddenly catching up. The conductor nearly leaps, arms in the sky, and down to the floor it all comes back in a roar. Panic! Hysteria! Every player is mad on the tune. Bows raise-stop-fall-raise-stop-fall, repeat, goes solo; violinists slide to the edge of their seats… The baton jitters and the violins screams – crescendo – stop!
Tonight Rojas plays again with the Rhodes String Orchestra, and pianist Mariel Ilusorio, in the Beethoven Room. Tickets are R50 (free for children). The programme is different but similar.
