'REVELRY' Advertiser review

The Advertiser
Monday 20 April 2009 - Rodney Smith

This bright bunch of busy young professional string players about town have been together since 2007, playing music they love whenever they can. The concert topped off several days' rehearsal guided by Ironwood, one of the country's newest high-profile baroque groups who are equally youthful and brimful of vim and vigour. The result was an energetic, disciplined and colourful presentation in which baroque good manners were liberally laced with infectious enthusiasm. That the concert wasn't a total success was mainly due to two matters that could have been addressed earlier on. Having five out of the seven numbers in D, favourite baroque key or not, depleted the usual variety one expects. Furthermore, mixing Ironwood's gut-stringed baroque instruments with Adelaide Chamber Players' steel-stringed modern instruments placed the Ironwood leadership group at a sonic disadvantage. Guest baroque trumpeter Martin Phillipson had a ball with his piccolo trumpet in Molte's 1st Concerto and with its less reliable but fascinatingly toned bigger brother in Torelli's Concerto - both in D, of course. Perhaps the picks of the bunch were L'Estro Armonico Concerto and Corelli's Concerto Grosso Op 6 No 4.