San Francisco Classical Voice

The seventh biennial Berkeley Festival last week offered a smorgasbord of early-music riches unusual even for the Bay Area. Tuesday's Festival and Fringe programs included a fine selection of Baroque vocal and instrumental music, from light-hearted to melancholy, and finished off with a memorable performance of Bach's six French Suites (BWV 812-817)by harpsichordist Davitt Moroney.

Con Tutto L'Anima, featuring contralto Karen Clark, presented a concert of Italian music at St. Mark's Episcopal Church. The group (with Jonathan Dimmock on harpsichord and organ, Michael Eagan on lute, Robert Mealy on violin, and David Morris on cello) alternated songs with short instrumental pieces to create a well-balanced hour of music that left the audience eager for more. Clark's gorgeous, clear singing, free of the unfortunate wobbles and heaviness so often associated with the contralto voice, carried the program with ease. Especially beautiful was Luigi Rossi's lament "Lascia, speranza," which plumbed the depths of despair then drew back to end on a perfectly-controlled pianissimo.

Young Bay Area soprano Twyla Whittaker returned to the Festival for the second time with a concert entitled "The Amorous Nightingale: a celebration of virtuoso birdsong arias." As Whittaker pointed out in her program notes, Italian nightingales sing rather differently than their French counterparts, and one of the delights of the program was the contrast between national styles — witty Purcell songs, an effusive Vivaldi aria, or the mannered elegance of Rameau. The over-exuberant upper end of Whittaker's voice was sometimes too much for the small, resonant space of Trinity Chapel, but the lower tessitura was smooth as silk, and any minor flaws were more than covered by an impressive stage presence.

The highlight of the day — indeed, one highlight of the whole festival — was Davitt Moroney's inspired recital of the six French Suites. Despite his good-natured warning that all six suites in a single evening might be a bit of a marathon, it turned out to be well worth the effort. Hearing the whole set, not just a few selections, allowed the audience time and space to reflect on Bach's stunning achievement in the suites: combining the French art of dancemusic and virtuoso harpsichord playing, in the tradition of Couperin, with his own contrapuntal and expressive genius.

One surprise for unwitting audience members was Moroney's choice of ornamentation, which he borrowed from a manuscript copied out by one of Bach's students and even embellished at some points in Bach's own handwriting. The result was different from the more austere versions so many of us have heard and played over the years, but with Moroney's light touch at the keyboard, the extra flourishes added grace and depth rather than merely getting in the way.

Also worth noting was his liberal use of rubato. It was a reminder that the suite as perfected by Bach had drifted far from its origins in courtly dance — an actual dancer would have needed powers of both mind-reading and levitation to follow some of Moroney's shifts in tempo. The result was deeply expressive, while never (well, hardly ever) lapsing into romantic excess.

Even the transitions between movements were perfectly timed: some were long, thoughtful pauses, while others were breathless attaccas leading into the next movement. The procession of contrasting pieces, ranging from the elegiac sweetness of the G-major Sarabande to the boisterous fireworks of the B-minor Gigue, never once faltered as he played through the suites. It was clear from the beginning that Moroney was not just playing a series of elegant little dances: he had a carefully considered perspective on the whole program, and it showed.

The Festival program, rather unaccountably, did not identify the harpsichord itself, an instrument built in 1995 by the Berkeley shop of John Phillips after a Baroque-era original. Despite some very slight (and understandable) slips in tuning as the evening wore on, it was a co-star of the concert, and, along with its builder, got an ovation at the end.

Last Tuesday's performance of the French Suites was a chance to observe the rapport between an unusually thoughtful, sensitive player and an instrument of the finest craftsmanship. The recent addition of Moroney to the UC Berkeley music faculty promises more of these collaborations.

(Kerry McCarthy, a Ph.D. candidate in musicology at Stanford, is aperformer, conductor, and student of early music.)

©2002 Kerry McCarthy, all rights reserved