Central to Ardee Baroque Festival is Irish Baroque Orchestra's continuing participation. This year IBO present a colourful selection of standard and not-so-well-known baroque masterpieces in two attractive programmes titled the A-Z of Baroque.
Included alongside Albinoni, Vivaldi, Corelli and Handel is a performance of the first movement of Zelenka's Sinfonia a 8 Concertanti in A minor which takes the form of a double concerto for violin and oboe.
Jan-Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745) was born in a village on the outskirts of Prague. He was a devout Catholic and in time began working as a court musician in Dresden. A double bass player, he also composed "fiendishly difficult" music for woodwind and strings.
His music thrills with its harmonic turns and melodic use of the instruments. He was friendly with Bach. Revered in his time, Zelenka was forgotten probably because he didn't publish his music.
If you are not yet familiar with his dazzling work, Ardee is an excellent introduction.
