One of the most significant Polish orchestras and one of the most dynamic ensembles on the European early music scene, the {oh!} Orkiestra led by virtuoso violinist Martyna Pastuszka, filled the Rector’s Palace atrium last night, 16 August, with the opulent sounds of Baroque which the Festival audience truly enjoyed.
Last night, the members of the {oh!} Orkiestra, the top connoisseurs and passionate enthusiasts of early music – Marzena Biwo, second violin, Dymitr Olszewski, viola, Krzysztof Firlus, viola da gamba, Vladimir Waltham, cello, Anna Firlus, harpsichord, Erazem Izidor Grafenauer Grof, lute and Jarosław Kopeć, percussion – created a baroque musical fresco through the exceptional beauty of their playing. Grof lute and Jarosław Kopeć percussion. Under the leadership of the renowned first violin and spiritus movens of the ensemble Martyna Pastuszka, they followed all the stylistic, interpretative, and technical standards of historically informed performance of early music, first with the Suite from the stage music for the piece „Distress’d Innocence or The Princess of Persia” by one of the greatest baroque English composers, Henry Purcell. Already with this composition, all the splendour of early music glimmered through the Rector’s Palace, and the notes of François Couperin's „La Sultanne” sonata and Michel Corrette's Le Phénix concert rang equally enchantingly. The compositions on the last night’s repertoire, with their wide range of sound colours and dynamics, presented the listeners with stories that came from a previously unknown world, the magical and mystical East, even though they may not themselves mirror the sounds of the Orient. However, as the musicians themselves point out, they never forget what is most important – that their music reaches the audience as completely as possible, which the Festival audience was convinced of last night. The peak of true musical pleasure, as confirmed by the wholehearted applause of the cowd, was brought by the last compositions in the repertoire, the sonata „Die Türkenschlacht bei Wien 1683” Andreas Anton Schmelzer, which clearly incites to fight for maintenance of European identity recalling the moment of victory over the Ottoman army at Vienna in 1683, and the Concerto Comique no. 25 „Les Sauvages et la Furstemberg” by Corrette and Jean-Philippe Rameau. The musician's encore at the end of the concert brought a touch of the Polish national spirit to the Palace, enchanting the pleasant summer evening with the performance of Tamburetto by the Warsaw writer, architect, and the first Polish composer of instrumental music, Adam Jarzębski, a favourite of the Polish court and nobility of the 17th century.
Tickets for the Camerata RCO concert which is next on the 74th Festival’s music programme, on Friday, 18 August at 9.30 p.m. in the Rector’s Palace, are available via the festival website www.dubrovnik-festival.hr or the service www.ulaznice.hr, at the box office in the Festival Palace (Od Sigurate 1) every day from 9:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and in front of the DTS building (Vukovarska St) from Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.