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I Fagiolini review – insights and intricacies as superb ensemble set Leonardo to music

Milton Court, London
Robert Hollingworth’s vocal ensemble joined forces with an art historian to set the Mona Lisa to Monteverdi and Vitruvian Man to Bach

Part multimedia lecture, part concert, I Fagiolini and their director Robert Hollingworth have joined forces with Prof Martin Kemp for Leonardo da Vinci: Shaping the Invisible to mark the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death. Leonardo expert Kemp talks about the artist’s work in often fascinating detail, and Hollingworth and his singers perform music suggested by the art that we see displayed on a screen at the back of the platform.

The links between sound and image are sometimes clearcut, sometimes more oblique. Salvator Mundi is accompanied by motets of the same name by Tallis and Herbert Howells, and The Annunciation by Victoria’s Alma Redemptoris Mater. Hollingworth chose the latter, he tells us, not so much because of its associations with the Virgin Mary, but because he found its overlapping phrases suggestive of the folds in the drapery worn by the figures in the painting. It’s in such attention to detail, asking us to listen and look afresh at the familiar, that the evening’s insights rest.

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from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2GKtUUw
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