United Kingdom Edinburgh International Festival 2026 [2]: Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 14 & 15.8.2026. (SRT)
14.8.2026: Venice Baroque Orchestra / Andrea Marcon (director, harpsichord)
Geminiani – Concerto Grosso in D minor ‘La Folia’
Handel – Concerto grosso in G, Op.6 No.1, HWV319
Vivaldi – Concerto in G minor for Two Cellos, RV531; Concerto for Strings in G minor, RV157; Concerto in G for Two Violins, RV516; Flute Concerto in C, RV443
15.8: Death of Gesualdo – The Gesualdo Six (music director: Owain Park), Actor-dancers of Concert Theatre Works
Bill Barclay – Director and Creator
Will Tuckett – Choreographer
Janni Younge – Puppet designer
Arthur Oliver – Costume designer
How appropriate that, on the warmest morning of the year so far, Edinburgh should get a blast of Italian sunshine in a visit from the Venice Baroque Orchestra. This period performance ensemble was founded in 1997, but this is their first visit to the Edinburgh International Festival, thanks mostly to the connection they made festival’s director – and star violinist – Nicola Benedetti, who has said that rehearsing and playing with the VBO opened up a whole improvisatory style to her playing.
It is, therefore, slightly surprising that there wasn’t very much of that in this programme. In this collection of concertos from the 1720s and ‘30s, everything felt bright, airy and fresh, but the bar lines were always there, with only the regrettably occasional flight of fancy from a soloist to make things more airborne. That is not to say, however, that their playing was particularly earthbound; far from it. They played music from Vivaldi and his contemporaries with enough fizz and crackle to make it sound like a perpetual motion machine, particular in the outer movements which had a terrific energy and drive to them. The first and last movements of Handel’s Concerto Grosso also had the kick of the dance to them, as had the irrepressible playing of Irene Libeau’s flautino in the C major flute concerto.
Slow movements were limpid, sometimes to a fault, and I was grateful for the richer textures provided by the pairs of instruments in the double violin and cello concertos. Perhaps most interesting of all, however, was the Geminiani concerto that opened the concert, a single-movement passacaglia whose variations shifted colour and shape with admirably satisfying variety, showcasing just how much colour director Andrea Macron could draw from only a dozen or so string players.
The following morning’s weather was just as summery, but this time the Queen’s Hall auditorium was plunged into darkness, both literally and musically, for The Gesualdo Six’s theatre piece Death of Gesualdo.
Staged by Concert Theatre Works, its director Bill Barclay insists that this is primarily a concert with staging rather than a piece of musical theatre, and that’s the key to understanding it. It retells some aspects of Gesualdo’s life while the Gesualdo Six sing a series of his sacred and secular madrigals which sometimes reflect the element of the composer’s biography on stage at that time. The key focus, of course, is his murder of his wife and her lover, but it moves on to Gesualdo’s purgatorial final years where he lived with the guilt and, finally, died in 1613.
The singers of the Gesualdo Six were on the stage throughout, wearing blackened Renaissance costumes, while six actors moved slowly among them, re-enacting some biographical scenes. The action was very slow and stylised, more like tableaux vivants than a living, breathing drama. The mixture of music and mime makes the event feel more like a ritual and, truth be told, it isn’t always clear exactly what’s happening. However, if it is a ritual then that matters much less and, if nothing else, it is an excuse to present 75 uninterrupted minutes of Gesualdo’s unaccompanied madrigals. And the Gesualdo Six did a terrific job, the blend between them as tight as could be while giving all six voices equal individuality in the mix. Ultimately, as well it should have been, the music was the thing.
Simon Thompson
The Edinburgh International Festival runs until 30 August in venues across the city. For information click here.
Featured Image: Death of Gesualdo © Paul Marc Mitchell (performance) in London’s St Martin in the Fields)