“In a time when all good things seem to be contracting, Tempesta di Mare, the Philadelphia baroque-music orchestra, swelled to a record-high 22 players on Friday at Lang Concert Hall in Swarthmore, and will stay that way for two future programs, collectively titled The Grand Orchestra. That’s six more players than in the past. “It’s about the power of ‘more,’” the program notes proclaimed. Tempesta di Mare didn’t let itself off easy, in a sophisticated program of strong-minded French baroque composers and volatile Italian eccentrics who wrote some of the trickiest rhythms before Stravinsky. The performances honored this great music, much of which has probably never been heard here before. The major revelation was Jean-Marie Leclair’s suite from the opera Scylla et Glaucus. It’s highly original stuff, with individual sections of the orchestra often marching their separate ways and enjoying a near-choreographic sense of interplay. Is a concert performance of the entire opera too much to hope for?” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 17, 2005
