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EARLY MUSIC
4/9/06
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A Palm Sunday Offering
By Anna Carol Dudley
The American Bach Soloists, in their concert Sunday night at the First Unitarian Church of San Francisco, presented two orchestral suites by Bach and two works by Handel for solo soprano.
Mary Wilson was the spellbinding soprano. She sang the recently discovered Gloria attributed to Handel, a solo setting accompanied by two violins and continuo — in this performance, eight violins, four bass instruments, and organ. Director Jeffrey Thomas, in his excellent program notes, writes that the attribution is "essentially indisputable," but rumor has it that there has been some recent disputing. No matter. It is an impressive and demanding work, and Wilson was fully in command of it and made a persuasive case as to its excellence. In Handel's time, many composers attributed their pieces to him in the hope of getting them published and performed. This Gloria, worthy of his name, should have legs even if there is doubt as to the attribution.
Particularly exciting was Wilson's performance of Silete venti, a motet in Latin expressing the joy and love the singer finds in Jesus — definitely by Handel, at his most inventive and dramatic. The motet opens with an orchestral symphonia, continues with a pair of recitatives and arias, and concludes with an Alleluia. The symphonia, grand and "Handelian" at the start, moves into a fast swirl of notes, abruptly brought to a halt by the soprano's striking interjection, "silete." "Silence, ye winds; let your rustling leaves be still, for my soul rests in joy." Wilson sang this accompanied recitative with splendid declamation and seemingly endless reserves of breath, especially in the word "dulcedine" (delight), on which Handel lavished long cascades of notes. She brought out the expressive chromaticism on "transfige me" (pierce me with love), spun out long, wide-ranging runs on "palmes" (it was nice to be hearing this motet on Palm Sunday), and dispatched with ease a sudden stirring of wind ("surgant venti"). Her fast passages were flawless in intonation and seemingly easy in execution (the mark of first-rate technique); her feel for the sound and meaning of words was impeccable; her mastery of Handel's grand leaps and wide-ranging runs was total. It was amazing to hear her give musical shape to the final Alleluia even at breakneck speed. (Incidentally, that Alleluia sounded familiar; I checked a collection of arias when I got home and found that Handel later added it to his oratorio Esther, either in entirety or in part.) The continuo — violone, celli, and bassoon — had a good time with the walking bass of the arias, and the oboe obbligato parts were nicely played by Debra Nagy. The orchestra was composed of highly competent players, many of whom also play in Philharmonia Baroque. They are experienced soloists in a variety of styles but also have the virtue of making up a tight Baroque ensemble. The Handel soprano solos were bookended by two of Bach's orchestral suites, in D major. No. 4 led off, but Thomas got a little carried away as to tempo. Much of the suite sounded rushed and occasionally a little blurry. The players were up to it, but in Bach's richly inventive music, ideas often went by too fast to register, and taking earlier movements at presto blunted the effect of the final ebullient Rejouissance. Suite No. 3, at the end of the concert, was more successful. It started with an overture alternately weighty and lively, and it continued with the particularly beautiful and familiar air for strings only. For those wondering why the famous "Air for the G String" was played on the D string, the helpful program notes explained that late in the 19th century, it had been arranged as a violin solo, transposed down a fifth. The title has stuck. The suite brought the concert to a close with a lively gigue.
(Anna Carol Dudley is a singer, teacher, member of the faculty of UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University lecturer emerita, and director emerita of the San Francisco Early Music Society's Baroque Music Workshop.)
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Mary Wilson
