In this captivating all-acoustic program, Duo Orfeo presents music of utter refinement, elegance and delicacy alongside music that is eccentric, bizarre and occasionally maniacal. Decadence in the music-box simplicity of Francois Couperin and Jacques Duphly’s roccoco-esque bon-bons precedes derangement in the drunken stumbling of Eric Satie’s enigmatic Danses de Travers. Decadence in the exquisitely crafted charm of Francis Poulenc’s childlike miniatures, Mouvement Perpetuels accompanies derangement in the vertigo-inducing chromaticism of Radames Gnatalli’s jocular Brazillian jazz/pop. Both qualities combine in the Duo Concertant of Antoine L’Hoyer, the attempt of an untutored romantic at Mozartean grace and, finally, in Astor Piazzola’s masterpiece for guitar duo, the Tango Suite, in which the extreme style and poise of that Argentinian dance is punctuated by outbursts of passionate melodicism and wild polytonal melismas.

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Works to be performed on the “Music of Decadence and Derangement” program include:

F. Couperin, Les Bergeries and Les Barricades Mysterieuse
Duphly, Rondeau (le Tendre) and Rondeau (le Gracieux), and Allemande
Satie, Danses de Travers and Airs a faire fuir
Gnattali, Suite Retratos
Lhoyer, Duo Concertante in e minor (Opus 31, No. 3)
Poulenc, Mouvements Perpetuels
Piazzola, Tango Suite