University of Virginia Library

Total Structure

As a general rule, Claudio
Scimone, the conductor of I Solisti
Veneti, in determining his
interpretations avoids both
scrupulous attention to the
conventions of authentic Barogue
performance practice and the
blatant excesses of Romanticism,
thus giving the group's
performances a stark, streamlined
quality, which at its best,
emphasizes the total structure of a
composition rather than the details
or component parts, but which, at
its worst, gives Baroque concerti a
stiff, unyielding, mechanical
quality, a feeling which
undoubtedly prompted one critic
to refer to the "pernicious,
persistent prattle of the Baroque."
However, Scimone's preference for
a streamlined interpretation of the
music played by I Solisti Veneti
does not prevent him from injecting
spirit and humor into the
performances, as the audience who
heard I Solisti Veneti here
understood and appreciated.