Review from Auditorio Municipal Maestro Padilla, Almeria, Spain

As part of the cycle of great concerts organised by Almeria’s cultural office, EUBO presented during their European tour a programme dedicated to real treasures of the Italian baroque. It included a selection of composers normally in the shadow of their better known and popular contemporary Antonio Vivaldi. From his repertoire EUBO performed N°7 and N°11 from the “L’estro armonico” and the violin concerto “Il grosso mogul”, less played in concert halls but well known by lovers of baroque virtuosity - with the paradox of not having any Italian among the seventeen members of the group.

The high level of accomplishment in this project, with twenty years of history behind it, stood out with the British musician Rachel Podger, specialist in baroque violin at the prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and at the international Sommer Akademie in Innsbruck. Her entire performance clearly showed her intention to turn her interpretation into a master class for all the orchestra members and a pleasure for the public.

The rendition of the concerto for four violins by Torelli showed the level of balance reached by this group as one of the essential aims developed in their time working together. The abstract, evocative character of the piece was well reflected with a treatment full of precise delicacy. The same was true of with the sonata N°XXV by Stradella, a true concerto grosso for two violins, theorbo and orchestra that represents a small treatise with rules and precise instruction for interpretation.
The rapport and versatility of the group was manifest brilliantly, leaving the audience with a great sensation.

In the other concerto for four violins, Op.4 N°12 by Locatelli (preceded by the spectacular “Il grosso mogul”, mentioned above), Rachel displayed all her proficiency, revealing the extent of her virtuosity, always well supported by the orchestra. One of the most solid of Vivaldi’s compositions, the penultimate concerto of the “L’estro armonico” closed this concert, full of precise playing, where the musicians that took part showed their very good training and artistic quality, the German doublebass player Barbara Post standing out.

Scherzo (Jose Antonio Canton January 2006)

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Review from Zadar St Donat Festival, Croatia (29 July 2005)

"Ambassadors of European Culture"

The EUBO was formed in Oxford in 1985, its sails full of wind and with a good financial backing, during the European Music Year, when the Continent celebrated the [300th] anniversaries of Bach, Handel, Vivaldi and Scarlatti. Although the orchestra's founder Paul James thought at the time that it was going to be an ensemble for one season only, the project, bringing together as it did musicians from several countries of the then EC under the directorship of Ton Koopman, proved to be too good an idea not to be continued.

Musicians from the newly acceded countries of the EU now also benefit from the valuable opportunity to launch their professional careers. The now well-respected member of the European elite in the field of the so-called authentic performance of the older, primarily Baroque music, the Croatian viola player Bojan Čičić, was one of those who a few years ago benefited from the opportunity to participate in a musical tradition without the exclusivity imposed by the administrative boundaries.

This time Croatia was included in the orchestra's schedule. After an appearance at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, and before the Zagreb Baroque Festival, I heard them at the Zadar St Donat Festival, where in spite of the heat which seemed to have lowered the attendance numbers, they filled the wonderful church of St Grisogonus [Krševan] with an infectious joy of high-class music-making. Already in the well-chosen, impishly composed Telemann Suite 'La Bourse', they showed that each Euro invested in their enterprise has been refunded hundred-fold, especially through the angelic lightness and transparency of the string section. Under the baton of the Maestro Lars Ulrik Mortensen, with the aid of whose gestures even the deaf would be able to imbibe music, Bach's Concerto for two harpsichords and strings, with the Finnish musician Anna Orasmaa and the [French] Thomas Yvrard, sounded extremely sounded extremely well; the exquisite ensemble playing was also evident in Muffat's Fifth Sonata 'Armonico Tributo'.

In spite of a few slips here and there by the Baroque oboeists suffering from the awful heat, one of the stars of the evening was our own mezzo-soprano with a European reputation, Renata Pokupić. She was particularly persuasive dramatically (making up for an absence of words from the programme booklet), and vocally virtuosic in Handel's love cantata 'Ah, crudel', and in the aris 'Doppo notte' from his 'Ariodante', with which the evening ended. The fact of such a prominent Croatian participation in the programme is even more significant when we bear in mind that a concert in Podgorica [in Serbia-Montenegro] took place in the orchestra's tour between their appearances in Dubrovnik and Zadar.

[Jutarnji list, Zagreb?] (Branimir Pofuk 1 August 2005)

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