[Harp-L] Louisville Orchestra review printed out

[Robert Bonfiglio <bon@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry, I got tons of emails that said they couldn't get the link to  
the review to work, so here it is:


courier-journal.com > Scene >  Arts and Leisure
Friday, February 1, 2008
MUSIC REVIEW | Robert Bonfiglio
All hail the mighty mouth organ

By Andrew Adler
aadler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Courier-Journal Critic

The Louisville Orchestra's current subscription program is  
tantalizingly unconventional. Not because of what opens it --  
Respighi -- or what closes it -- Brahms.

No, it's what comes in the middle that throws the whole affair  
delightfully off-kilter: Villa-Lobos' Concerto for Harmonica played  
by Robert Bonfiglio, a man for whom the term "indefatigable" seems  
utterly insufficient.



Dressed entirely in black, with hair hanging down to his shoulders  
and legs that at any moment threaten to propel him into the air,  
Bonfiglio wields his Hohner chromatic harmonica as an instrument of  
expressive extremes. You might not expect a harmonica to be capable  
of such bold contrasts, whether in shading of dynamics, bending of  
pitch and exceptional articulation, but there it is.

Villa-Lobos' 1946 concerto is a staple of the classical harmonica  
repertoire (yes, there is classical harmonica repertoire), and  
Bonfiglio has performed it often enough for the core to be ingrained  
in his soul. The piece is fundamentally gentle-natured, spinning out  
its phrases with an unforced, intrinsic lyricism heightened by  
winking sprightfulness.

Occasionally the outer movement veers into passage-work that seems  
busy for its own sake, yet with an interpreter as sympathetic as  
Bonfiglio, who cares? Certainly not yesterday's listeners at the  
Kentucky Center's Whitney Hall (many of them from area high schools),  
who clearly couldn't get enough of the Man in Black (apologies to  
Johnny Cash).

Bonfiglio obliged with cascading scales and multiphonics, suggesting  
double- or triple-stopped strings of a violin, yet here cupping the  
harmonica to produce a remarkable array of vibrato effects. Though he  
was miked, the amplification wasn't so extreme that you thought the  
harmonica had landed in your lap. Its sound, its manner, constantly  
beguiled.

Guest conductor David Lockington led the LO musicians in sympathy  
both to their soloist and to the composer's delicate sectional  
balances. Bonfiglio returned for no fewer than three encores: foot- 
stomping, body-bending blues numbers that declared, "Roll over, Villa- 
Lobos!" -- or at least, "Stand aside while I get down."

Respighi's "Brazilian Impressions," three shimmering, precisely  
wrought movements that stand in marked contrast to tone poems like  
"The Pines of Rome," was compromised a bit by some tentative attacks  
by the woodwinds and trumpets. No quibbles, though, about the account  
of Brahms' Third Symphony. Lockington urged the piece ever-forward,  
and the musicians responded with playing that offered plenty of sinew  
without trampling the composer's expansive impulse.

LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA WITH ROBERT BONFIGLIO, HARMONICA
Management: Joseph Pastore, Jr.
jpi@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.robertbonfiglio.com