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Kensington Sinfonia presents Biber Fever: Forgotten Baroque Heartthrobs featuring Adam Zinatelli, trumpet
Hope Lutheran Church
Sunday, October 30 - Sunday, October 30

More in: Classical

This weekend you’re bound to see some wicked witches, hot cops and naughty nurses. Donovan Seidle hopes you’ll also check out some sexy baroque composers. He leads the Kensington Sinfonia on Sunday afternoon in a concert titled Biber Fever: Forgotten Baroque Heartthrobs.

“I love the idea of Biber as a Baroque heartthrob,” says Seidle, referencing composer Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber and not the teenaged pop singer. “Even though I know it’s completely ridiculous.”

Biber is best known for his solo violin sonatas, which brought a new level of virtuosity, and perhaps sexiness, to the instrument. Biber’s music made unprecedented demands: multiple stopped chords, high registers and scordatura (alternate tunings). A century before Paganini, Biber was the rock star of his era, Kurt Cobain to an age of wigs, corsets and courtly love.

Seidle is himself a composer and a violinist, acting concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO), as well as music director of the Kensington Sinfonia. “I chose this music because Biber really appeals to me. He stretched the technique of the violin, writing things that no one else at the time could even play.”

The Sinfonia performs one of Biber’s larger instrumental works, his Battalia for 10. Seidle has rewritten some of the parts to expand it into a Battalia for 11, perhaps with a nod to Spinal Tap. “It’s a call to Mars, the god of war, and it gets pretty wild. At one point we have antiphonal cellos making snap pizzicato musket fire.”

The concert also features Adam Zinatelli, principal trumpet of the CPO, in concertos by Telemann and Neruda. “The Neruda was written for horn,” says Zinatelli, “but it covers a ridiculously high and virtuosic range for that instrument. I’m not sure who the piece was written for, but he must have been an amazing horn player.”

Telemann, on the other hand, was constrained by the limited tonal possibilities of the baroque trumpet. Those limitations forced him to get creative. “It’s like he had one hand tied behind his back, but he’s still playing with the form in inventive ways, using irregular phrase lengths and surprising our expectations.”

But can music written centuries ago still be sexy? “High-performance anything is thrilling,” says Zinatelli, “and the expressive nature of this music amplifies that. Any music can be sexy, especially live music, which requires you to be physically attuned with the performers’ precise gestures in the moment.”

Music of the baroque era, roughly 1600 to 1750, often unfolds at a pace that might feel incompatible with modern life. Yet that pulse is what gives the music its power, according to Zinatelli. “It forces you to realign your sense of time — you’re not in control, but you find yourself experiencing time and rhythm on a different scale.”

Seidle likens it to riding a train as opposed to a car — we might move slower, but the scenery feels more vast. He loves to imagine how the first audiences may have reacted to this music. “It must have been incredibly exciting, the way patterns take shape and extend to a larger scale. Somehow as humans we love identifying patterns, and we especially love seeing those patterns developed and transformed.”

The Kensington Sinfonia concert is the day before Halloween, and Seidle says, “I’m kind of hoping some people show up in Justin Bieber fan gear.” Or if the spirit moves you, Baroque heartthrob composers are also welcome; think breeches, doublets and frilly collars.