Guelph Musicfest

Tartini Violin Sonata in G minor, Op. 1, No. 10, Didone abbandonata (Dido Abandoned)
de Falla Suite Populaire
Kreisler Sicilienne et Rigaudon
Vitali Chaconne
Schnittke Suite in the Old Style
Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending

In 1935, the violinist Fritz Kreisler admitted something he’d hidden for decades: several “long-lost” Baroque pieces he’d been performing, including tonight’s Sicilienne et Rigaudon, supposedly “in the style of Francoeur”, were his own invention all along. His response to the outcry: “The name changes, the value remains.”

That question — what changes when we look back and remake something — runs through the whole programme. De Falla turns Spanish folksong into the concert hall; Tartini channels operatic tragedy into the violin; Vitali’s modest original becomes Romantic grandeur in Ferdinand David's hands; Schnittke plays knowingly with Baroque forms two centuries later.

The programme closes with Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending, no longer reimagining a style, but a poem, rising above everything that came before it.