Divertimento Ensemble - intimate and informal at Dartington

Divertimento Ensemble – Bach and Villa Lobos
Sunday 16 September in the Great Hall, Dartington, at 4pm

A programme featuring Brandenburgs, 8 cellos and Brazilian spice! This concert brings together some of the finest professionals around, with Divertimento Ensemble, playing on period instruments, joined by leading viola da gamba players, Alison Crum and Roy Marks.

Barbara Degener plays Bach’s sublime Suite No. 3 for unaccompanied cello and Catherine Hamilton, a sparkling soprano with a superlative touch, sings the once-heard never-forgotten solo which soars wordlessly and sumptuously above an orchestra of 8 cellos in Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5.

This year marks 333 years since the birth of Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the greatest geniuses of western music, whose influence has been continually felt over the centuries since his death.

Among the many 20th-century composers who venerated Bach and incorporated his influences in their music was the Brazilian Heitor Villa-Lobos, whose nine Bachianas Brasileiras of 1930-45 were inspired by Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos and so make an ideal pairing in this concert, Villa-Lobos designed his works as deliberately contemporary homages in the ‘spirit of Bach’, reworking native Brazilian folk sources. Villa-Lobos saw the fact that he was able to carry out such a surprising cultural transference as a tribute to Bach’s universality, and to the fact that Bach’s music is “deeply rooted in the folk music of every country in the world”.

More than just a concert, the medieval Great Hall at Dartington will be set out in an intimate and informal layout and audience members will be invited to bring their drinks from the White Hart Bar. Totnes florists Blue Geranium will bedeck the Hall with seasonal blooms and canapes will be served afterwards.

The programme features:

JS Bach – Suite No. 3 in C for unaccompanied cello
Villa-Lobos – Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1 for 8 cellos
JS Bach – Brandenburg Concerto No. 3

JS Bach – Brandenburg Concerto No. 6
Villa-Lobos – Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 for soprano & 8 cellos

Tickets all unreserved £12 side bench or balcony, £18 table seating www.dartington.org |boxoffice@dartington.org. Box Office open daily 12.30 – 7pm tel. 01803 847070

The concert is sponsored by Kate Caddy in aid of Rowcroft Hospice and Torbay Hospital’s Oncology Patients’ Fund, and supported by Dartington Arts.

Philip R Buttall

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Philip Buttall

Philip R Buttall was the Classical Music Writer at Plymouth Herald from 1997-2017. He is a sought-after piano teacher, composer and arranger, and online concert and CD reviewer. Further information and contact details are available at www.philiprbuttall.co.uk