Best bets

B'Rock Orchestra

Date: Feb 25 - 7:30 pm

Venue: National Centre for the Performing Arts

Price: 80-400 yuan

This program presents what we now know as Italian baroque music from the early 17th and 18th centuries. What we unfortunately forget is how modern and experimental this music was and still is in many ways. From the birth of purely instrumental music (sonatas) and grounds based in popular melodies or 17th century "pop singles" (Aria sopra "La Bergamasca", passacaglias and chaconnes) in the early 17th century to the birth of the solo concerto and the "orchestral" sound at the beginning of the new century, this is music full of risks, fresh ideas, experimental forms and combinations, all written to a family of new music instruments: the violin family. The words sonatas, concerto, violin, etc, for us now are old ones, but for composers like Castello, Bertali, Marini and Uccellini they were brand-new words in their vocabulary.