Fiddling with Vivaldi

Classic concertos get an electrifying new lease on life

Marc Shulgold, Rocky Mountain News

Wednesday, April 5, 2006

We've come to expect off-the-wall music from Gregory Walker, the guy who penned Dream N. the Hood, billed as the first rap symphony.

But this time the Boulder-based violinist/composer may have outdone himself. Walker has created an electronic reworking of Vivaldi's beloved Four Seasons in which the solo fiddle embarks on a weird and wild sonic adventure.

This is no gimmick, Walker insisted.

"I think we're just following the composer's intentions," said the violinist, who'll play his re-arrangements of two of the picturesque concertos with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra Thursday on the Auraria campus and Friday in Boulder.

The violinist, who serves as concertmaster of the Boulder Philharmonic, has already recorded this re-examination of The Four Seasons with that orchestra in a disc titled Electric Vivaldi (Newport Classic). Each concerto is prefaced with an electronically altered recitation of the sonnets included in the original score.

Some may question the validity of such a venture. Not Walker, who views the Baroque master as an inveterate experimenter.

"Vivaldi was always striving for the synthetic in his music," he said, pointing to the composer's fondness for all manner of sound-altering violin mutes, and to a concerto that called for two violini in tromba marina - "violins in the manner of a trumpet marine."

Popular briefly during the Baroque, the trumpet marine was a large, long-necked instrument with a single string and partially attached, vibrating bridge. When bowed, it sounded trumpet-like.

That tradition of new sounds is being observed by Walker's five-string electronic violin and the synthesizer played by his wife Lori. Together, they can produce the sounds of mosquitoes, a howling wind, chirping birds, barking dogs and other effects that Vivaldi had included in his nature-inspired concertos.

The violinist pointed to the sonnets the composer had attached to the concertos (and presumably penned by him) that describe in detail the sounds of the seasons heard in the scores - down to the clacking teeth of shivering ice-skaters. While the Walkers' synthesized shenanigans are proceeding, the Boulder Chamber Orchestra will play it straight, offering a string accompaniment that has been only occasionally rewritten.

Founder/music director Bahman Saless said he's comfortable with such daring experiments, but is curious about listener response.

"I've gotten to know our audience - but I do wonder how they're going to take to this," the conductor noted.

"It is a radical remix, with all of (Walker's) innovative solos. Mostly, we're just accompanying. But really, this is not a departure for us - we do lots of different things."

The Iranian-born musician (whose day job involves running the Boulder-based tech-support Web site Earthnet) pointed to the BCO's performance last season of a Bach orchestral suite in which he instructed the cellos to play pizzicato instead of using the bows. "It sounded kind of jazzy," he recalled.

Saless remains amazed at the success he's been enjoying with the chamber orchestra since its first standing-room-only concert at First Baptist Church in September of 2004. "I'm having a lot of fun. I'm the boss - no one can fire me. This started off as a toy, but now it's reality."

That playful spirit fits in well with Walker's approach to music in general, and to Vivaldi's Four Seasons in particular.

"If we play it straight," Walker said, "we would just be replicating all those existing recordings. Why not use the (technical) tools that haven't been used previously?"

The son of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Walker understands the importance of respecting the greatness of musical masters such as Vivaldi.

"I've taken this very seriously," he stressed. "It's totally subjective for any artist, how far to take a concept. It's intuitive, really."

Although he joked that the mosquito-buzzing in Summer "does get out of hand," Walker insisted that he's concentrated on keeping a proper perspective. "There's got to be some balance - it has to make musical sense."

Traditionalists may scoff at Walker's Electric Vivaldi, but he's proud of his accomplishment. "I worked the better part of two years on this, rethinking the music, programming the solos and reworking some of the orchestral accompaniment.

"This is my Sistine Chapel."

Boulder Chamber Orchestra

• When and where: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, King Center Recital Hall, Auraria campus; 7:30 p.m. Friday, First Baptist Church, 1237 Pine St., Boulder.

• Cost: $5 to $10 (Denver); $10 to $20 (Boulder).

• Information: 303-556-2296 (Denver); 303-583-1278 (Boulder)

• Of note: Bahman Saless conducts music by Vivaldi, Arthur Foote and Mozart, with violinist Gregory Walker.

Marc Shulgold is the music and dance writer. 303-892-5296 or Shulgoldm@RockyMountainNews.com