KEY POINTS:
This year The Edge has brought us some top-notch names in its enterprising International Arts Season and, on Saturday, Europa Galante proved it has few competitors in the field of baroque-inclined ensembles.
The precision and joie de vivre of the Vivaldi Sinfonia della Serenata which opened the concert said it all, even if shoddy programme notes offered nothing in the way of background to composer or work.
All we were given on a flimsy leaflet were basic personnel credits and website bios of the group and its leader, Fabio Biondi.
Information would also have been welcomed on the significance of the play Abdelazer, which inspired the Purcell Suite that followed. The fact that Purcell looked to French fashions here was reflected in the alert and sinuous playing, especially in its Rondeau, best known for inspiring Britten's Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell.
The interplay of theorbo and harpsichord continuo in Purcell's Overture was also particularly fetching.
There were appropriate extravagances to be savoured in the A minor Concerto from Vivaldi's La Stravaganza, especially in its stealthy Grave, but uneasy intonation from Biondi was an omen of what was to come after interval.
The group's 1991 and 2001 recordings of The Four Seasons reveal that these scores are no dead museum specimens for Biondi. On Saturday, Vivaldi's Spring bloomed anew with telling shifts in its phrasing and teeth chattered molto col legno when Winter came along.
The first movement of Autumn, displaying perhaps a little anger at the encroaching cold season, explored daring and dramatic musical extremes, taking the spotlight away from Biondi's tuning problems.
Nevertheless such a seasoned artist is utterly in tune with the spirit and intentions of the composer, saving his wildest inspirations to show Vivaldi's liquor-laden peasants falling asleep.
Alas, with no information about the work's programmatic intent, based as it is on Vivaldi's own poems, many in the audience may well have been creating their own scenarios, drawn from the many television advertisements to which this music has had the misfortune to have been harnessed.
