Il Furibondo or the travel of an Italian to London.
From Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762), Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), Georg Friedrich Haendel (1685-1759), Charles Avison (1709-1770)
With this program, The Flying Squad of the Queen takes off for the United Kingdom to meet with Francesco Geminiani. In the early XVIIIth century, England was discovering Italian music and its treasures and every theater in the country were hosting operas.
Many Italian musicians came to benefit from this artistic Eldorado.
Among those to benefit were many violinists playing, publishing and teaching the Italian violin style, known also as grand Corelli’s style.
These violinists built a repertoire dedicated to string orchestras and coloured with opera’s traits. The concerto grosso, imported from Italy, was then augmented with openings, recitatives, pastoral dances and other frantic prestissimos.
Francesco Geminiani was one of these violonists. From Lucca in Italy, he relocated to London in 1714. His path also took him to Paris, The Hague, and Dublin …. He left us with a work as eventful and hectic as his own life. The Flying Squad of the Queen has decided to retell his eventful life in music by creating an instrumental opera based upon Francesco Geminiani‘s most striking pieces, among which many were unknown until now.
The instruments take the place of the singers to lead the story and to express the richest of emotions, while Geminiani’s liberal approach to his music takes us in an instant from the deepest disarray to the most innocent joy.
This instrumental drama follows the structure of a Handel’s opera: opening, ballet, pastoral scene, storm, and a slumber or lamentation songs. It mixes pieces from Il Furibondo, Handel and Avison.
