High Life

HIGH LIFE 113 “I love to conduct both orchestra and a choir, as singing and playing are like yin and yang, bringing harmony through making music together.” Dmitry Sinkovsky Sinkovsky’s interpretation of Baroque music is uniquely authentic, if not nonpareil. He breathes new life into seemingly familiar compositions, reminiscent of the re-interpretation of biblical subjectmatters byBaroquemaster painters, such as Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes , Velázquez’s C oronation of the Virgin and Rembrandt’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee . No one can self-profess to be a classical music aficionado without knowing Antonio Vivaldi’s Le Quattro Stagioni , but with Sinkovsky as soloist-conductor, the oft-performed concertos sound like no other. Without recordings, one could only second guess how the orphaned girls of Pio Ospedale della Pietà in Venice under the baton of Il Prete Rosso would have performed, but hewouldmost probably approve of the son of Third Rome. Sinkovsky’s performance on the night was sensual and sensational but not saccharine, imaginative and inspiring but not ingratiating; in it energy and vitality are electrifying yet balanced with finesse. If music is a universal language and composition a speech, he must be a silver-tongued orator in the mold of Marcus Tullius Cicero and Marcus Porcius Cato, masterfully combining ethos, logos and pathos inAristotelian terms, speaking to the audience inaway that fewmusicians are capable of. Comprising vivid and easily understandable works from Italy, Bohemia andGermany, theprogramsheda lightontheevolutionandvarietyofBaroquemusic. United by the common goal of rejuvenating early music, Sinkovsky and the Ghent- based B’Rock Orchestra put together a genuinely memorable performance, which would not have been possiblewithout shared passion and tacit understanding. 图 Image by Davy De Pauw