Music Review: Great Scot! The Baltimore makes vibrant, virtuosic early music
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Feb. 4, 2008
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..They brought their lutes and viols to Glasgow, along with
bewitching soprano, Custer LaRue...It ought to be offensive
that the most exhilarating Scots music performance to turn
up on our native soil this year should come from America...They
bring to this music researched by them with awesome thoroughness,
a mix of jazz and joy, of improvisation and uncanny insight...
"Crossing to the New World" was the name of the
program...You'd have to see this group in action to believe
what your ears tell you you're hearing...The audience loved
every minute.
Few early music players have more fun making music than the
Baltimore six, who through their performances, take the position
that echos of renaissance secular music are still to be found
in modern folk practice.
True to form, the rambunctious sextet from Baltimore found
material for a Christmas program that was unfamiliar, imbued
with the common touch and full of delightful surprises
...superb musicianship...achieved with the ease, fluidity
and flawless skill long taken for granted for string quartets
and other "modern" chamber ensembles.
The Baltimore Consort is perhaps the best balancing act of
period authenticity, instrumental precision and sheer fun
in the early music community today.
It's not hard to understand why the Baltimore Consort has
such a large following...they are able to make an instant
connection with the audience....The group offers a lively,
eclectic mix of early music on instruments that tickle the
fancy, intrigue the eye and please the ear. The fact that
all six musicians are superbly talented at their art doesn't
hurt either.
The Baltimore Consort gave new life to popular songs and
dances of France four centuries ago in "La Rocque 'n'
Roll" at Synod Hall..these musicians, with their clever
arrangements, project delight and spontaneity in their performances.
One of the best concerts I attended last season was given
by the Baltimore Consort: titled 'La Rocque 'n' Roll:Popular
Music of Renaissance France,' it was devoted to songs and
dances that delighted people 450 years ago, and still give
great pleasure...
The Baltimore Consort is one of the best period instrument
ensembles around...distinguished by the absolute joyous mastery
of their instruments to the degree that they can improvise
at will...
To the musicians of the Baltimore Consort, it's an easy jump
from the Elizabethan court to the Appalachian countryside.
In their entertaining program at the Cleveland Museum of Art
... they balanced scholarly knowledge with the communicative
skills of storytelling and the improvisatiory techniques of
jazz.
The Baltimore Consort is continually surprising, even after
fifteen years. Each of the concerts this reviewer has heard
has been unlike the others...the early-music movement has
no more distinguished practictioners than this group.
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