A lively baroque-infused programme set the scene for the ensemble’s first concert of its 2024/25 season

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The Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF) launched its 2024/25 season on Friday 1 November, with a baroque-infused programme of works by Stravinsky, Haydn, Biber and Gallo. The concert featured soloist Anastasia Kobekina, who was making her debut with the ensemble.

Under the directorship of leader Tomo Keller, the players kicked off proceedings with Stravinsky’s Concerto in E flat ‘Dumbarton Oaks’ — named after the house in which representatives of the US and USSR governments met in 1944 to discuss the founding principles of what was to become the Charter of the United Nations.

Kobekina took to the stage with her 1698 ’De Kermadec-Bläss’ Stradivari to perform Haydn Cello Concerto in C major, a work she describes as bringing to mind the words ‘sparks, joy and sunlight’.

‘A Classical concerto that has so many Baroque elements in it,’ she said of the work, the manuscript of which was discovered as recently as 1961 in the Prague National Museum by Czech musicologist Oldřich Pulkert.

’The style of the outer movements is so elegant, vivid and playful. The serenade-like second movement is almost like a staged aria, and makes me wish I could be a dancer and a singer performing some fantastical version of it.’

Following the interval, the ASMF performed Biber’s Battalia à 10, an eight-movement work that took the listener through scenes including a rowdy pub, a military march, a battle, ending with a lament for the wounded. Paper weaved between the strings of the double bass evoked images of the rattling effect of military snare drums, while violent snap-pizzicato brough to mind musket fire in the battlefield.

Kobekina took to the stage once more to perform the solo role in Benjamin Wallfisch’s 2009 string orchestration of Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne. The work, which was cobbled together initially by cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, takes music from Stravinsky’s Pulchinella suite, described by Kobekina as ’Baroque harmonies spiked with contemporary dissonances — the 20th century wearing a harlequin’s mask.’

The ensemble finished off the evening with Domenico Gallo’s Sonata No.12 in G minor ‘Follia’, based on the triple-time dance melody that captured the imaginations of Vivaldi, Corelli, Couperin and CPE Bach.

The programme was performed against the venue’s dramatic East Window by Shiraszeh Houshiary, which will serve as the backdrop to many of ASMF’s upcoming Front Row scheme season highlights that include performances from violinist Augustin Hadelich and violist Timothy Ridout. The Front Row scheme offers full-time students and those under 30 seats to selected concerts for £5.

All photos © Matthew Johnson 

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