Rondò Veneziano is an Italian chamber orchestra, specializing in Baroque music, playing original instruments, but incorporating a rock-style rhythm section of synthesizer, bass guitar and drums, led by Maestro Gian Piero Reverberi, who is also the principal composer of all of the original Rondò Veneziano pieces. The unusual addition of modern instruments, more suitable for jazz, combined with Reverberi's arrangements and original compositions, have resulted in lavish novel versions of classical works over the years. As a rule in their concert tours, the musicians, mostly women, add to the overall Baroque effect wearing Baroque-era attire and coiffures.
The orchestra's first decade of albums included only entirely original compositions in the style of the baroque rondò, "a musical composition built on the alternation of a principal recurring theme and contrasting episodes".
In later years, in addition to many new and original albums continuing Gian Piero Reverberi's own unique Rondò style and tradition, Rondò Veneziano also brought their fusion of classical and contemporary instruments to a small number of albums dedicated to some of the great composers of the classical and baroque tradition.
In an interview, Maestro Reverberi said on the sound of Rondò Veneziano: "Rondò Veneziano's music is first of all positive. Also when it seems to be sad, it's never sad. It's always positive in a sense that at the end there's always a good future. So I think that also the reason of the success it that it's music where you don't have to think negative or to feel negative or if you feel negative it should be something that brings you to think positive."
In Italy, their debut album Rondò veneziano (1980) reached number 1 on the Germano Ruscitto chart and number 3 on the musica e dischi chart. It reached number 32 in Germany, where it sold more than 50,000 copies. The album La Serenissima (1981) reached number 10 on the Germano Ruscitto chart and number 8 on the musica e dischi chart. The album Scaramucce (1982) reached number 15 on the Germano Ruscitto chart, and number 14 on the musica e dischi chart, in Italy. It reached number 33 in Germany. The album Venezia 2000 (1983) reached number 3 on the Musica e dischi chart in Italy and number 2 in Germany.
A version of "La Serenissima" (the theme from the album Venice in Peril) was released in the United Kingdom as a single and reached number 58 on the UK Singles Chart in October 1983. The track was also widely used at that time by BBC Television, as the theme tune to Hospital Watch. The track was later to feature on the globally successful Venice in Peril album which was released as part of an international campaign to save Venice from sinking into the lagoon. A reissue of the album Venice in Peril reached number 34 in the UK.
An animated music video was produced for "La Serenissima".
In 1985, they provided the score for the movie Not Quite Jerusalem (known as Not Quite Paradise in the United States). This score was a reworking of many of the original pieces featured on the Venice in Peril and The Genius of Venice albums.
The orchestra has produced 70 albums since its founding in 1979.
Source: Article "Rondò Veneziano" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.