Il Giardino Armonico are one of the more deliberately abrasive groups playing baroque music on original instruments; their performances have a simultaneous toughness and delicacy miles away from the old-fashioned easy-listening approach to Baroque repertoire. These are performances--whether of fairly well-known Vivaldi concertos like "Il Gardellino" for flautino or "La Notte" for flute, or of comparatively obscure pieces like Merula's "Ciaccona a Tre"--that make the viewer sit up and concentrate. The short introductions to each piece are exemplary, telling us enough... to intrigue and pay attention without giving us any surplus information. The performances were filmed on location in Sicily, whose ancient monuments and long beaches form a surprisingly effective backdrop to the music. The DVD has a facility for displaying the scores as the pieces are played, as well as subtitles in English, German, French and Dutch. --Roz Kaveney [show more]
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