Dolcissimo | Adelaide Festival 2022 review

Baroque harpist Hannah Lane and soprano Anna Fraser presented an Italian program with emotional depth and subtlety.

Dolcissimo – soprano Anna Fraser and baroque harpist Hannah Lane. Picture: Tony Lewis, supplied

Dolcissimo – Resonance: Chamber Landscapes

ADELAIDE FESTIVAL

Classical Music

UKARIA Cultural Centre

March 12

With a name like Dolcissimo, one might have mistakenly expected some rather saccharine music. But this voice and harp recital was filled with emotional depth and subtlety.

Baroque harpist Hannah Lane and soprano Anna Fraser presented a program of Italian music from the late renaissance and early baroque periods, weaving together songs with solo harp works and recitations of related texts.

The baroque harp has a distinctive tone quality, with more warmth and nuance than its modern equivalent. This sound, and Lane’s sensitive musicianship, perfectly suited Fraser’s mellifluous singing.

Adelaide Festival 2022. Dolcissimo – Resonance: Chamber Landscapes, soprano Anna Fraser and baroque harpist Hannah Lane. Picture: Tony Lewis, supplied

In Luzzasco Luzzaschi’s Aura Soave, the soprano’s vocal agility was on show, with precision and vibrancy in the Italianate ornamentation.

The solo toccatas highlighted Lane’s virtuosic technique. Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger’s Toccata Arpeggiata was played with wonderful clarity and dynamic shading, and there was refined phrasing in the toccata by Ascanio Mayone.

Francesca Caccini was one of the more familiar names on the program. Born into a musical family (her father’s music was also included in the concert), her music was highly-regarded in her time, and has gained popularity again in recent years. Her poignant song Lasciatemi qui solo was one of the highlights of this recital.

Very little is known about the other female composer included in Dolcissimo, Francesca Campana. Lane and Fraser gave a moving performance of Campana’s Semplicetto Augellin, really bringing out its bittersweet quality.