QUARTANGO DAZZLES   The Community Concert... More

QUARTANGO DAZZLES   The Community Concert Association presented their second concert of the season on Thursday, playing to an enthusiastic, capacity crowd.   Quartango is a unique combination of instruments:  Piano (Stephane Aubin), Violin (Antoine Bareil), Double Bass (Rene Gosselin) and Bandoneon (Douglas Schmidt).  Each of the instrumentalists is a virtuoso in his own right, but together they make amazing music.  Their music is Spanish oriented, but they take it way beyond the usual with brilliant arrangements of old and contemporary.  The music ranges from the intense, almost ferocious to elegant, sensual melodic phrases, lush harmonies and, at times, wonderful discordant sounds.  They demonstrated complete control in every style.   The Bandoneon is a rare Concertina type of button instrument which has adapted well to the Spanish style.  Schmidt briefly described its history and showed his mastery of this difficult instrument in every way.   Gosselin, on the Double Bass, displayed incredible technique in his bowing and his pizzicato.  The upper register sound was particularly round and sweet.  He also showed us his comic side with his spicy comments and the way he moved with the music, especially in the fast passages.   Bareil, on the Violin, was impressive and was equally at home in every style - soaring melodies, clean harmonics, pizzicato and incredible bowing.  His virtuosity was evident in every way.   Pianist Aubin was equally impressive, demonstrating flawless finger work, glissandos, huge chords and delicate caressing of the notes.  He played several outstanding solos.   After dazzling us all evening, they chose to end the program with the haunting, beautiful song from the movie "The Mission".   It was obvious that the players were enjoying their performance and having a great time, which added to our enjoyment. To sum up, the combination of instruments was a rare treat with full, rich sounds.  Indeed, "the whole was greater then the sum of its parts". Less