It takes a lot of courage for a chamber music group playing modern instruments to embark on a concert tour of Baroque music in Seattle, with a superb saxophonist, Branford Marsalis, who is new to the genre and whose instrument was not invented until more than 75 years after the ending of the Baroque era.
Why Seattle particularly? This city has long been a hotbed of Baroque performance, with many first class Baroque musicians living, performing and teaching here, plus a long tradition of stellar international Baroque groups performing here, and it has a musically sophisticated audience well versed in Baroque performance styles.
I wish I could say that the venture was an unqualified success, but while there were some great moments, others were less so.
That said, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia is a highly disciplined group of fine musicians. Nineteen string players and a harpsichordist made up the group on the Meany Hall stage, led by concertmaster Meichen Liao-Barnes. The performance was jointly presented by the UW World Series and the Early Music Guild.
The concert included works for the orchestra alone by Bach, Telemann and Locatelli, and works originally written for oboe but which work well for soprano saxophone by Albinoni, Couperin, Dornel and more Bach. The orchestra’s togetherness was impeccable, their tone warm, tempi were right for the works, and the players eschewed bouncing bows on the strings (staccato not being a Baroque technique). Some players avoided vibrato except as an occasional ornament as was done in Baroque times; others, including unfortunately the continuo cellist, used it continuously. The harpsichord was placed at the back of the group and was hard to hear.
This was less important in the orchestral works where it was part of the general instrumentation, but it mattered a lot in Couperin’s Concerts Royaux: Premier Concert and Dornel’s Oboe Sonata in G Minor, solo works with harpsichord and continuo accompaniment. Marsalis is an impressive musician, extremely musical with wonderful technique, and he had done his homework regarding Baroque performance style, with notes inégales in the Couperin and ornamentation which sounded integral to the music.
Marsalis was at one side in the front, the cellist about ten feet away on the other side, and the harpsichordist about twelve feet back from both of them and mostly inaudible. Had the musicans been close together, both works would have sounded more coherent. As it was, one could enjoy the beauty of Marsalis’ playing.
Playing with the orchestra in Albinoni’s Concerto a cinque for oboe, strings and continuo in C major, and Bach’s Concerto for the same instruments in F major, BWV 1053, he showed how possible it is to use a saxophone to play these works. It would also work well, one imagines, replacing a Baroque trumpet.
An insert gave several last minute program changes but without movements listed or program notes to go with them. This turned out to be quite bewildering at times, particularly for the many audience members not familiar with Baroque music. Telemann’s Don Quichotte, for instance, did not include the narration or any explanation of the different parts, so much of its descriptive passages flew by unrecognized.
The entire concert gave the impression that the performers had had too few rehearsals together, though this will lessen as the group tours, while modern instruments played with vibrato gave a different feel and less spark to this lively music.
This sounds like an interesting concert.