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
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