Concert Review of Slavic Wonders
By Gary Freeman
Goldberg 49
December, 2007
Ground Basses and Slavic Basses
Medieval and Renaissance examples of Slavic music literature formed the program of the Rose Ensemble’s early fall concert at the Basilica of St. Mary, Minneapolis. Nothing resonates over marble like reverberations between the profound Russian bass and the ethereal soprano. The Slavs had Italian models, and made sure their churches could accommodate polychoral ensembles with the same excitement as their Italian prototypes. The Rose Ensemble, an early music group from St. Paul, Minnesota specializes in music that’s a little out of the ordinary, and though most in the audience did not recognize the names on the program (the Russian Vasily Titov, the Czech Jan z. Jenstejna, and the Pole Mikolaj Zielenski), few people will forget the Rose Ensemble’s gripping and emotional interpretations of the music that portrayed God and his angels as vividly as that same culture’s gold-encrusted painted icons.
Boston, New York, Miami and Minneapolis are all cities playing important early music. Their groups have claimed their musical territory and performed beautifully.