San Francisco Classical Voice

Friday's violin sonata with continuo strayed completely from the beaten path of the Baroque sonata. It actually amounts to a suite in 10 sections, many of them extremely short, representing literal reproductions of animal or bird sounds. For “The Cat” there are assorted slides to represent meowing. Playing with the wooden part of the bow rather than the hairs, fanciful pizzicatos, and other novel practices turned up amid depictions of a cuckoo, a frog, a hen and rooster, a quail, and such. But all these and more are held within an opening prelude and a closing Allemande. All the effects were charmingly achieved by violinist Feeney with continuo support from cellist Bonnell and harpsichordist Wolinsky.

Marais' church-bell piece, fully titled Sonnerie de Ste. Geneviève du Mont de Paris, is a kind of minimalist passacaglia on a three-note bell tone, repeated for 10 minutes as textures thicken above it. As usual with Marais (1668-1733), the mood is one of somber beauty — the 18th century equivalent of Brahms. It is not intrinsically tedious, unless one plays it slowly. On Friday it sounded a little undernourished in momentum as presented by Ahkmedyarova with Bonnell and Wolinsky.

Rameau's harpsichord sonata with instruments came as a distinct contrast. Here was a standard three-movement work of vivacious elegance, and far better in all respects than the Ahkmedyarova-Bonnell-Wolinsky group had provided for Marais. The one drawback here as elsewhere was that Bonnell was playing gamba parts on the cello. There's more than puritanical nonsense to be considered in objecting to that. By its very nature, the cello produces greater volume than a gamba, so the cello tended to dominate several of the works beyond the reality of what is supposed to be a supporting element.

Couperin's homage to Corelli is one of those curious pieces which are of historical importance but not a great deal of fun to hear. Some of the seven descriptive movements are lovely, especially the pastoral lullaby for Corelli's falling asleep, and the jaunty final “Corelli's thanks.” Couperin's piece represented a resourceful effort to mesh Italian and French styles, which was a major brouhaha of the Baroque. Corelli was a very sober-minded composer, and that may have influenced Couperin to pull in his sails. Yet, this is not close to Couperin's best creative efforts. The performance featured Feeney, Ahkmedyarova, Bonnell, and Wolinsky, all of whom provided fine service to the score.

Telemann has acquired a reputation as something of a bore, but that is undeserved. True, the “Darmstadter" Trio remains in its seat most of the time, but it belongs to the composer's music for family home use. Flashy effects and virtuoso demands were not in the picture. Still, it was the most conservative work on the concert. Ahkmedyarova, Ghidossi-DeLuca, Bonnell, and Wolinsky played as fully handsome an account as anyone could expect.

Finally, there was the astounding Farina multi-movement suite from the early Baroque. Written in 1627 in Dresden, where Farina served as concertmaster, the Capriccio is in 13 descriptive sections featuring fairly literal transcriptions of animal, bird, and instrumental sounds. Dogs bark and growl, cats fight, trumpets sound fanfares, and Spanish guitars strum like mad. Born in Mantua and then moving to Venice, Farina had contact with the most advanced minds of the early Baroque, notably Monteverdi, Rossi, and Viadana. It was also a period when Italian grotesques were in fashion.

Farina's piece goes to considerable, even outlandish, extremes in employing techniques later used by Biber, such as playing with the wood of the bow, glissandi, double-stops, and grinding the bow hairs into the instrument to create a raw tone for the dog growls. But beyond that, Farina shrank from nothing when it came to dissonances. These are occasionally extreme, struck without preparation and then remaining unresolved, sometimes sounding as if the musicians were utterly lost. What one ended up with could easily (yes, literally) be mistaken for a work by Charles Ives. It's all one giant, Italian pile of camp, which the full quintet played with obvious relish.

One should note that an announcement was made from the stage before the music began, pleading for silence from the audience (“. . . please unwrap your candy now”), because the program was being recorded live. If you are interested in madcap Baroque and missed this evening, the possibility of listening to it should be forthcoming ere long.

(Heuwell Tircuit is a composer, performer, and writer. He was chief writer for Gramophone Japan, and for 21 years was a music reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle, and previously was a reviewer for the Chicago American and Asahi Evening News)