BREMF LIVE – BLOCK4

There’s something quite funny about a bass recorder which was so much taller than the lass playing it. Furthermore, it was followed by the even bigger contra-bass recorder. However, these are not just a gimmick. BLOCK4 certainly know how to play both recorders and their audience. They began in the higher registers with a jolly Catalan carol and saved the lower instruments for later. In choral works by the great polyphonic masters Palestrina and Lassus, they cleverly used expressive percussive techniques to substitute for vocal consonants. Finishing with Merula’s flamboyant ‘Nightingale’, they delivered all the virtuoso flourishes of trilling birdsong.

St Paul’s Church, 5 November 2016

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