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EARLY MUSIC REVIEW
November 8, 2003
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By Anna Carol Dudley
Philharmonia Baroque's current offering is a feast of Italian music for
strings. Saturday's concert at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley
showcased the fact that every string player in this orchestra is an
accomplished soloist as well. The star performer in the first half was Philharmonia's own Elizabeth Blumenstock, playing a violin concerto by Giuseppi Tartini. After intermission, the star was guest soprano Emma Kirkby.
Tartini's concerto is full of unexpected harmonic switches and a unique
kind of virtuosic figuration. His music would never be mistaken for
Handel's or Vivaldi's. Blumenstock's flying fingers make all the
ornamental flourishes — no matter how fast or complicated — seem as easy as breathing, and every sound she produces, whether sustained or fleeting, is a beautiful singing sound. Cellist Phoebe Carrai and bassist Michelle Burr also got in some pretty good licks on continuo.
Kirkby sang Vivaldi: two operatic pieces and a motet (plus an encore on
the general theme of great expectations). She sang the opera arias with
strong dramatic presence, effectively switching between the speaking style
of recitative and the more sustained style of aria. "Se mai senti" from
Catone in Utica, with its theme of sighing lovers and its muted string
accompaniment accented by a plucked viola part, was especially suited to
her voice, featuring beautifully calibrated wide skips from low to high,
and imaginative ornamentation on the return of the opening section. The
solo motet In furore giustissimae irae showed her mastery of speedy
passagework and chromatic tuning, but her sound was light and lacking in
color. Perhaps the sound Vivaldi had in mind for the motet was more a
robust Italian string sound than a pure English vocal sound.
The orchestra played two concerti grossi, by Arcangelo Corelli and Francesco Manfredini, illustrative of the development of dramatic forms in orchestral as well as vocal music in 18th-century Italy. Both featured an excellent chamber ensemble — violinists Lisa Weiss and Lisa Grodin, cellist Carrai and continuo — alternately accompanied by or playing with the orchestra. After the intermission Philharmonia's executive director, Robert Birman, announced the recent signing of a five-year contract with music director Nicholas McGegan. The audience was quick to applaud this news. Mr. McGegan is much admired for his programming and for the liveliness of his music-making. His puckish sense of humor was in evidence as the concert ended with a concerto by Francesco Durante, La Pazzia (Madness), a swirl of sound played off against two violas which interrupted with "the confident inappropriateness of the insane," as described in George Thomson's hilarious program notes. The two violists who jumped to their feet to saw away enthusiastically at their inappropriate theme were Maria Ionia Caswell and Ellie Nishi.
(Anna Carol Dudley is a singer, teacher, member of the faculties of the University of California, Berkeley, and San Francisco State University [lecturer emerita] and director emerita of the San Francisco Early Music
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Emma Kirkby
Elizabeth Blumenstock