The Grand Tour – Dances from England, France, Italy and Spain (2/8/24)

Julia Bengtsson – dance & reconstruction; Patrick Pride – dance; Paul Shipper – music direction, recorder & Baroque guitar; Dongmyung Ahn – violin; Jason Priset – Baroque guitar & theorbo

Here’s the cool low-down. The dances were Baroque dances, which I had never seen before. The steps involved fairly intricate hops, skips and twirls. Alas, I could not see many of the intricate hops and skips footwork because of the single-level seating in the venue.

There was a combination of instrumental works, and instrumentals accompanying dance works. All were very interesting. I won’t bore you with all of the details, but the composers included Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687). Oh, did I mention that this was a Gotham Early Music Scene concert? Other composers, many of whom were new to me, were André Campra (1660–1744), Theobaldi di Gatti (ca. 1650–1727), Andrea Falconieri (1585–1656), Anonymous (two pieces), Henry Desmaret (1661–1741), François Le Cocq (1685–1729), and Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713). How many did you know?

Since the focus was on dance, I’ll focus there, too. Of the eleven works on the program, there was a Marche, an Entrée, a Gigue, a Ciaccona, a Menuet, a Scaramouche, a Passacaglia, a Chacone (see Ciaconna, above), and a Folie. Do I know what they all are? I do not. Did I like them all? I did.

On to the pieces that were actually danced. The Entrée was a solo for female dancer, accompanied by recorder, theorbo, and violin. Stylized hops and skips abounded. A duet, La Bretagne, was interesting in that the female and male were dancing together, sort of. There was interaction but there was no touching or partnering. This was the case in most of the duets.

The Menuet was, oddly, a lengthy solo female dance with violin, guitar and theorbo accompaniment.

The Scaramouche was a very clever male solo danced to solo recorder that included much humor, with an emphasis on mime and exaggerated dance steps.

The Passacaglia was danced by the masked female, which strangely gave her movements more expression.

The closing work, Folie d’Espagne, was a lengthy dance duet accompanied by violin, guitar, and theorbo. The duet included pageantry and humor, and the female dancer also played the castanets. What’s not to like?

I really enjoyed the performance, and I’m lucky enough to have worked with the music director, Paul Shipper, a lifetime ago with a different early music group. It’s a small world after all.

ConcertMeister