The Chromatic Organ

Saturday 23 September at 7pm

Leonardo Garcia Alarcon, organ

Guest musicians:

Renata Dubinskaitė,  mezzosoprano

Rodrigo Calveyra, cornetto, recorders

Leonardo García Alarcón, professor of maestro al cembalo at the Geneva Music Academy, awarded conductor of the ensemble Cappella Mediterranea, agreed to improvise his entire organ recital for the I International Kretinga Early Music Festival. Improvisation was a common practice in renaissance and baroque, and is an obligatory discipline for the specialists of historically informed performance. Nevertheless, only a few organ players nowadays would be able to improvise a whole concert, keeping the style of different forms of historical improvisation. In this program Leonardo García Alarcón will improvise in twelve different historical forms, having the chromatic scale as the main theme.

A musical improvisation is the work of a moment, which is born to disappear. It is being created directly at the instrument, in this case, the organ. Its aesthetical criteria have to be at the same level as of written music works. That is why it requires the deep knowledge of techniques and aesthetical decisions taken before the improvisation.

Programme

Overture

Allemande

Canarios

Bárbara Strozzi, Chè si può fare

Passacaille

Ricercar

Battaglia

Tarquinio Merula Canzonetta Spirituale sopra alla nanna 

Tiento

Aria

Tempesta

Claudio Monteverdi, Se dolce e’il tormento

Echo

Capriccio

Fantasía

Giovanni Legrenzi Lumi potete piangere

Leonardo Garcia Alarcon CV