Albert Storace reviews Jordi Savall’s opening concert and a performance of Rubino’s Requiem as part of the Valletta International Baroque Music Festival.

The fourth edition of what has become a very prestigious festival of baroque music began with a concert at the Manoel Theatre with Jordi Savall directing Le Concert des Nations. The celebrity status of both director and ensemble left many disappointed.

Not that the performers were not top-notch in their reading of J.S. Bach’s famous Musical Offering. I fear that this offering was more suitable to a highly specialised audience of musicologists and academics: not exactly an opening to go off with a bang at the beginning of a festival.

Some seasoned professional musicians lamented the lack of excitement. Most of the time, the performers wore glum expressions and, while performing with admirably high proficiency, they seemed to play more to, and for, themselves than reaching out to the audience.

Both the harpsichordist and flautist provided some flashes of brilliance, while the latter featured prominently in the Menuet and Badinerie from the Suite in B Minor. These were offered as an encore, which was just about the only time when there was some reaching out from the stage.

The festival marched on and among some really outstanding performances (and one with a Maltese connection at that) was the modern local premiere performance of Bonaventura Rubino’s Requiem Mass à 5 concertata (1653) at the Jesuit church.

The energy, drive and attention to detail of the director resulted in quite an experience

The local connection with this work is that the only extant copy of the lost manuscript is at the Mdina Cathedral Music Archives. Discovered in the 1980s, but transcribed and published in 1999 by Nicolò Maccavino, with the full support of Fr (later Mgr) Ġwann Azzopardi, this Mass had its first modern performance in Rome in 2012 and was first recorded in 2014.

Directing the soloists, chorus and orchestra was Vincenzo Di Betta, maestro di cappella at Santa Maria in Campitelli, Rome. It was only right that, finally, this beautiful work has been heard here in all its glory. Equally right that Di Betta directed the performance.

The performance was more suited to a highly specialised audience of musicologists and academics.

There were many elements involved in the performance. These are the Cappella Musicale S. Maria in Campitelli of Rome, the Studio di Musica Antica Antonio il Verso of Palermo, the Ensemble La Cantoria and La Pifaresca.

According to usage prevailing in Rubino’s time, the composer inserted several examples of plain chant, which were beautifully intoned by a group of four young men.

Fr Davide Carbonaro, parish priest of Santa Maria in Campitelli, contributed to perfection the Epistle (Machabees 12: 43-8) and Gospel (John, 6:37-40) in plain chant and other extracts in the same style.

Rubino also inserted brief extracts of music by some of his contemporaries, including the very famous Frescobaldi, Carissimi and Cavalli, as well as Salomone Rossi and Johann Jakob Froberger. These extracts complemented Rubino’s work, resulting in a colourful musical tapestry that was little less than fascinating.

The energy, drive and attention to detail of the director resulted in quite an experience. The cues were precise and the balance between voices and orchestra (performing on period instruments) was admirably maintained. What also sounded unusual for a baroque Requiem was the bounce in some passages, which makes things sound more like a celebration of life than dread of death, despite the literal meaning of some of the text, especially in the Dies Irae and Offertory.

Mention must be made of the fine contribution of the soloists: sopranos Paola Ronchetti, Picci Ferrari, altos Antonella Dorigo and Enrico Torre, tenor Antonio Orsini and bass Walter Testolin.

The audience received this work very warmly. One of the happiest faces was that of Mgr Azzopardi, whose dream of seeing Rubino’s Requiem performed in Malta finally came true.

It augurs very well for future collaboration of this kind which, thanks to painstaking research, will bring to light and sound the many hidden treasures in Mdina’s Cathedral Museum Music Archives.