Graz Minoritensaal

Recreation with hail showers in the spring wind

Lina Tur Bonet gave a stormy concert in Graz(Bild: Pablo F. Juarez)

What a change in the weather! The baroque section of the Recreation Orchestra may have announced spring in the title of their March concert, but soloist Lina Tur Bonet prefers to ignite a storm in the Minoritensaal in Graz. 

The Spanish violinist Lina Tur Bonet opens the evening in Francesco Geminiani's Concerto Grosso in D minor with a cool, baroque-slender sound: hoarfrost, hail and lightning strike glimmer across the gallant strings. The title of the original can be grasped in sound: "La Follia" - madness.

The baroque rain shower later reaches full force in Vivaldi's violin concerto "Grosso Mogul", in which Bonet audibly explores the limits of its power with boiling virtuoso runs.

Dancing temperament
Unusual pieces are played beforehand. Bonet brings a prancing temperament to Vivaldi's "Graz Sonata" (so named because a copy of it was found in the local archives). In Charles Avison's Concerto from arrangements of pieces by Domenico Scarlatti, the musician definitively proves that her conception of baroque music is not old-fashioned, but eventful, with chiseled runs (in "con furia") and a varied splayed dance ("Vivacemente"). The orchestra followed suit: fluffy and well-balanced, they glided through a turbulent spring.