Theorbo and Renaissance music, Live at Lunch, Royal Opera House, 11/02/2022

Today's Live at Lunch performance at Royal Opera House's Linbury Foyer was a special treat for renaissance and early baroque-music lovers. The recital was given by Kaoru Yamada, a member of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, playing violin and Eligio Luis Quinteiro, playing theorbo and baroque guitar, who's artistic director of the ensembles Capilla Cayrasco and Camerata Cayrasco.

As people were coming downstairs, taking their seats, Eligio was already giving us a pre-concert taste of 'what the concert would be like' by gently tuning his theorbo and testing the acoustic of the venue.

The artists proposed us a variety of renaissance and early baroque compositions from various composers: first piece by Spanish composer Diego Ortiz; two short, yet very nice and complex sonatas from Dario Castello, where we could appreciate the alternate leading instrument in melody and harmony, as well as changes of rhythm, dynamics and mood; beautifully ornamented variation on "Flow my tears" by German composer Johann Schop; more humorous, joyful and rhythmical song "John come kiss me now" by another German composer Thomas Baltzar and finally a Sonata n.3 from Corelli, a virtuoso piece for violin and lute .

The beauty of this concert was not only in its rarity and virtuosity, but also in its educational point. Eligio Luis Quinteiro introduced us to "theorbo" - a renaissance base lute, originally created to accompany opera singers. Theorbo has fixed base tones from which a player could create a beautiful harmony. The accompanying character of this instrument was very evident in every piece, where the violin took the leading role in melody, yet theorbo was giving the piece its harmony and another dimension. Eligio also played baroque guitar (in the Baltzer piece John come kiss me now) , an instrument "born" in France, very much liked by Luis XIV. The 45 min in Linbury Foyer were certainly a time well-spent.