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"To the jerk who threw a dart at me from a passing car as I walked in front of Sonic on Columbia Avenue in Lexington Saturday night: I have your dart." -- anonymous Free Times reader who goes on to give the address where said assailant can reclaim his weapon
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| | Issue #21.26 :: 06/25/2008 - 07/01/2008 | Online Extra: Columbia Baroque Soloists
Good Graces Prevail in June 24 Concert
| BY DAVID LOWRY
| Most music lovers, classical or otherwise, know a few things about Baroque music. Messiah of Handel. Trumpet Voluntary by Clarke. Canon by Pachelbel. And if one watches Keith Olbermann, Toccata in D minor by Bach (as Keith awards the nightly prize of “worst person in the world”).
Those who know more know that many performances of Baroque music are created with modern instruments such as modern violins or oily Steinways or wobbly voices. Or synthesizers. When it comes to Bach, it’s hard as hell to kill the music. His music works on practically everything if it’s well prepared.
Far more rare are the opportunities to hear Baroque music on “period” instruments, that is to say viols and recorders and sackbuts and clarini and virginals and positiv organs — and singers with accurate pitch-making abilities. When it happens, there is revealed a whole new world of sound that is really exciting. It doesn’t happen often because investing in antique instruments or having reproductions of antique instruments is expensive, and few musicians can earn a living performing early music.
Tim Hein, the Director of Music and the Arts at Shandon United Methodist Church, is determined to create a working association of such enthusiasts. Attempting to form an association devoted to the performance of Baroque music is at best limited without enthusiastic artistic and financial support.
The Columbia Baroque Soloists, in a Tuesday evening concert on June 24, presented a “Grand Tour” of music from France, Italy, England, Holland and Germany. The venue was the dining hall of the church with the ambiance of a spacious and nicely decorated mansion room contributing to the kind of intimacy required for small Baroque ensembles. Performing were Jerry Curry playing a fine Richard Kingston single-manual harpsichord in the French style; Gail Schroeder, internationally known virtuoso on Viola da Gamba; Jean Hein playing baroque recorder; and Brittnee Siemon, mezzo soprano.
Particularly arresting were the expressive lines of Marin Marais’ Suite in G Major for gamba and harpsichord, with rich ornamentation and very sensitive ensemble. The same two performed three fascinating recercade by Diego Ortiz, who was listed on the program as Italian, though Spanish might be more correct despite his work in Italy. That’s another captivating facet of Baroque music — the international and intercultural persuasions on composers and changes in geopolitical history.
The most introspective moments came with three works concerning the shedding of tears. Dowland’s “Flow, My Tears” was poignantly sung by Brittnee Siemon with accompaniment of pizzicato gamba and muted harpsichord. Two Pavane Lachrymae followed, one by Dutch composer Jacob van Eyck for solo recorder, and the famous one for harpsichord by William Byrd.
Recorder, gamba and harpsichord really rocked in a trio by Telemann, and the program ended with all four involved in an Italian work by Handel, a German, from his time in Italy, before he ever thought about being in England. What a tour!
To think of the ramifications of a Baroque association developing in Columbia, perhaps even into a small Baroque orchestra (I have a fertile imagination), one might envision performances of things like Messiah with the proper period instruments or various Bach cantatas, Brandenburg concerti, etc. The Columbia Baroque Soloists is indeed an association to earn our attention. | |
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