Let the Queensland Symphony Orchestra take you on a musical gondola ride when they present 'Carnival In Venice' at Redland Performing Arts Centre (RPAC) in July.
Brisbane violinist, Warwick Adeney will feature as lead soloist for the performance which includes selections from Strauss, Sullivan and the complete rendition of Vivaldi’s ‘The Four Seasons’.
“I’m pretty keyed up,” Warwick says. “I’ve played ‘The Four Seasons’ quite a number of times but now I probably haven’t played it for a year or something, so I’m really looking forward to getting into that again.
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“It is a very exciting piece, it’s a very vivid piece and there’s a lot you can do to bring those effects to life. I like to live very much in the moment of the performance and really try to live out the effects of what the music is doing. Because it’s not just a description and it’s not just a baroque piece of music – it’s a real living, exciting piece of music to do.
Considered one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Venice was the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi and has inspired countless classical masterpieces. Programme highlights for the evening also include works from artists who drew on the city’s rare wonder, such as Johann Strauss and Sir Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert & Sullivan fame).
“It’s obviously a Venice theme… it’s actually a foreigner’s view of Venice,” Warwick explains. “Vivaldi was actually Venetian but Strauss was Austrian and Sullivan an Englishman, so this was their quaint little idea of what it might be like in Venice, and their stories based in Venice.
“While the pieces of music are Austrian and English in origin, but they would have some sort of reference to Venice, such as a gondola song or some sort of Italian arias. It’ll be good to discover those. Plus there are some more famous things like an overture from [Giuseppe] Verdi and we’re playing and a bit of [Claudio] Monteverdi who was Venetian. So it’ll be really colourful, really nice stuff.”
Rounding out the Venetian theme for the evening is Warwick’s violin, a handmade instrument of mass intonation which most likely dates back to the period when some of this music was being written.“It’s probably 250 or 270 years old,” Warwick says. “It was made in the Venetian region, probably by a member of the Guarneri family [renowned luthiers from Cremona, Italy c. 17-18C]. That’s as close as we can get to be sure about it because it doesn’t have its original label, so we’re going on its design, age of the wood and tell-tale features. It’s pretty mysterious; the guy I bought it from in Melbourne said it hadn’t been played for a long time before I got it.”
'Carnival In Venice' performs Redland Performing Arts Centre 8 July.
