Not content to be simply called a great recorder...ist...Piers Adams is, according to the playbill from our evening of Vivaldi, "heralded" (heralded, mind you) a "the reigning recorder virtuoso in the world." I'll admit that this was the first sentence that I read in the leaflet and for some reason it stuck with me as I read the rest and listened to Red Priest, bring forth an evening of baroque music.

What, I wondered, is the reigning recorder virtuoso like? I imagined the curious company one must doubtless keep to hold such a title. Who are the runners up? I had, and still do have, a difficult time imagining that the International Consortium of Professional Recorder Virtuosos (ICPRV...pronounced phonetically, hard c) were a great deal of fun. Their numbers probably consist of folks who've spent the better part of their lives being hit over the shins for one reason or another.

So I was confused and curious, reading about the bold, mustache twirling irreverence of Red Priest, a group that has been compared (and no doubt heralded as well) to Cirque du Soleil and the Marx Brothers. Well. Such company.

All of this comes from a difficult relationship I have with Renaissance music. Basically, I have always had a hard time imagining humans listening to it. In fact, being somewhat musical myself (and also having a kind of extravagant brain that conceives of ancient cultures weirdly sometimes), it damaged my opinion of the Renaissance in general. I imagined Leonardo Bruni slamming the shutters closed and wishing the dreary droning quartet of sackbuts lutes and those weird sprouting stringed thingies would stop being so persnickety and mournful while he was trying to conceive of a theory of humanistic liberal arts.

That's what I thought of Renaissance music. Fusting old twangy stuff that threatened to veer over the guardrail of the bridge of my....overextended metaphor. Anyway, I didn't like it.

Then, the year our twins were born I listened on New Years eve, while R was in the hospital to this fantastic recording by Rolf Lislevand. Now, before finishing reading this, you should go buy that CD. I'll wait. There, now you can listen to it while you read. Well, Rolff recognized a kind of jazzy improvisational spirit in this music, variations on themes, arpeggiation, diminution, exploration and solo virtuosity. The recording reflects this. It sounds like something I could rock out to if I lived in the 17th century. Moreover, it sounds like something Leonardo Bruni could rock out to. That's too flippant. It's emotional. It's human. It has the kind of life to it that I expect from music, which must in so often serve as the expression of emotions, desires and wants that are too essential for words.

So, back to Piers, the lord of all recorder virtuosos. They leapt onto the stage in masks and cloaks as R already mentioned, Piers at the forefront, elbows pumping, dancing around one another and leaping forward. I have to say, I think Piers might have stolen his stance at one point Jethro Tull but the point was the spirit.

I had the joy of watching the first half of the show with G next to me, leaning around the pillar to get a better look at these dancing players. They were wild. The music was wild. G was entranced. R has already mentioned the fact that G came to the concert as a Vivaldi lover, so I won't belabor that except to say it made it much better for me, who has only recently awakened to a love of this music.

It was a show in every sense of the word. These folks danced, they came out into the garden, the harpsichordist (the dashing and largely self taught David Wright) grasping a fiddle and wandering around the fountain at one point, barking mysteriously on the violin, playing a dog roaming the fields in THE FOUR SEASONS, but still taking time to confess to us as he walked by "I don't even play violin, sorry."

Anyway it was a great and lively reminder of how human this music is. G's response to it only reinforced this. We were able to go and meet the musicians, which was fun G as well, the youngest person in the room by at least two decades. But I have to echo R's point that these were not clowns. They were playing it right, and I think that's important. They do appear sort of wild and clownish from their website, but it's not silly. It's right. The music is everything they play it with (even the occasional pop music strain in the middle of a solo, or musical joke).

Frankly, I'd expect nothing less from the reigning recorder virtuoso in the world today.