On September 20th, the Grand Hall of the Vano Sarajishvili Tbilisi State Conservatoire became the epicenter of a Baroque revival, closing this year’s Festival Night Serenades 2024. Founded by the Georgian violinist Liana Isakadze, the festival has already been known for its ability to merge musical heritage with contemporary brilliance, and the final concert—”Vivaldi and Friends”—was the perfect culmination of its ethos.
Led by the dynamic Andres Gabetta on violin and Maurice Steger on recorder, the program honored Antonio Vivaldi and his Baroque contemporaries, weaving together a breathtaking musical narrative that transported the audience to 18th-century Europe. Accompanied by the Festival Base Orchestra Georgian Virtuosi, the evening was not just a performance but a profound musical experience that captured the very essence of Baroque innovation.
A Brilliant Duo
The pairing of Andres Gabetta, a renowned interpreter of Baroque violin, with Maurice Steger, often referred to as the “Paganini of the recorder,” was a masterstroke. Their collaborative energy sparked an electric atmosphere in the hall, drawing the audience deep into the heart of the music. Gabetta’s fiery interpretation and Steger’s playful, virtuosic recorder performance created a duality that was both invigorating and captivating, emphasizing the emotional and technical extremes of the Baroque repertoire.
The night’s repertoire, drawn primarily from Vivaldi’s masterpieces, also paid homage to contemporaries like Pietro Locatelli, offering a broad scope of the musical dialogues of the time. Gabetta’s powerful, energetic playing brought out the driving rhythms and intricate counterpoint, while Steger, with his unparalleled breath control and ornamentation, demonstrated the recorder’s potential as an expressive and complex solo instrument.
The Georgian Virtuosi’s performance was emotionally nuanced. With the festival coming to an end, the orchestra was clearly invested in making this final performance a lasting memory. Their sensitivity to both soloists allowed for moments of breathtaking dialogue, where each section of the orchestra interacted seamlessly with the individual lines of the violin and recorder.
A Baroque Legacy Revisited
Vivaldi and Friends was a fitting tribute not just to Vivaldi but to the entire Baroque era, a time when music’s complexity was matched by its emotional immediacy. Gabetta and Steger both embraced this duality, with Gabetta unleashing his violin’s full expressive power, from rapid, virtuosic runs to delicate, lyrical passages, while Steger’s nuanced approach to the recorder added layers of beauty and intrigue to the ensemble.
By weaving in compositions from Vivaldi’s contemporaries, including a stormy and dramatic piece by Pietro Locatelli, the concert balanced the familiar brilliance of Vivaldi with darker, more introspective works. These pieces, which were full of technical challenges, allowed both Gabetta and Steger to demonstrate their virtuosic abilities while maintaining the emotive core of the music.
As the final notes echoed through the hall, it was clear that this concert was more than a performance; it was a celebration of artistic mastery, both in terms of the musicians on stage and the legacy of the festival itself. Founded by Liana Isakadze, Festival Night Serenades has sought to bridge tradition with modern interpretations, and this final evening of Baroque splendor, led by two world-class soloists, could not have been a more fitting tribute to that mission.
The audience left not only with the melodies of Vivaldi, Locatelli, and their Baroque peers swirling in their heads, but also with the understanding that these works, in the hands of gifted musicians, remain as vital and thrilling today as they were centuries ago. ‘Vivaldi and Friends’ was not merely the end of a festival—it was the beginning of a deeper connection to the timeless beauty of Baroque music.
By Ivan Nechaev
