Play On!

A gimmick can make you rich and famous these days if you know exactly how to serve it up. An example of a gimmick is to play Baroque music in any style you feel inclined.

When I threw a towel around myself and sashayed into the kitchen, singing a Bach cantata aria, my beloved wife thought it not funny indeed, and I escaped just ahead of an airborne dinner plate.

However, a quartet of instrumentalists who call themselves Red Priest did something on the same order at Rollins College's Tiedtke Hall, on April 9, and my wife finds it a very entertaining affair.

Granted, to say that the four instrumentalists — recorder player Piers Adams, violinist David Greenberg, cellist Angela East, and harpsichordist Howard Beach — play virtuosically would be a rank understatement.

Of course, it ain't just what they play, it's the way they play it that makes a program of beautiful Baroque music a lot of fun.

These four anachronistic "hipsters" take a Baroque piece (say by Bach) and dress it up so that Bach is in a different suit of clothes. The program included examples of plagiarism by Baroque composers, guys who made a habit of such purloining, but included Red Priest's up-to-date contributions to the practice.

Musically speaking, everyone had his hand in someone else's pocket. Works heard during the evening were: Telemann's "Sonata in A minor," traditional Sea Chanty's of the era, Albanoni's "Adagio", Vivaldi's "Sea Storm Sonata", Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor and the Prelude from Suite #1 for Cello, Reels and Hornpipes on Bach motifs, Tartini's "Senti lo Mare", Leclair's "Tambourin", and Corelli's Concert Fantasy on "La Folia."

Red Priest surprisingly played the entire concert from memory, a feat enhanced by the fact that the selections were highly complex and exacting.

The four players' perfectly rendered nuances were breathtaking.

Recorder player Piers Adams added an interesting aspect by his use of four different-sized recorders.

How fortunate is this community that Rollins College brings such recitals to the music-loving public?

Such a formidable artistic performance puts us momentarily on a par with the great cities of North America and Europe. Carnegie Hall is at our doorstep.