San Francisco Classical Voice

American Bach Soloists, the 11-year-old Bay Area Baroque ensemble, took a break from its usual format last weekend with a chamber program that, for the first time, did not directly involve founder and Music Director Jeffrey Thomas. Instead, the famed Dutch recorder virtuoso Marion Verbruggen joined a quartet of colleagues for an appealing assortment of works by Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann, and Alessandro Scarlatti (heard Thursday at Berkeley's St. John's Presbyterian Church).

No one seems to know just how the recorder got its English name, but the best guess implies a connection with the Latin recordari, "to recall," perhaps a reference to the ability of this ancient and simple wooden flute (not much more than a glorified whistle) to help someone remember a tune. Its soft-spoken tone (prompting the Italians to call it flauto dolce, "sweet flute") can range from shrill top notes to a breathy, barely audible bottom register. Yet it manages to be heard over more prominent string instruments. Like the harmonica, it's an easy instrument to play modestly but a supreme challenge to master, especially when it comes to harnessing its notoriously tricky pitch.

With her admirable dexterity, not only does Verbruggen demonstrate that the recorder can hold its place with more sophisticated instruments as a vehicle for bravura showmanship, she also makes it look effortless. Verbruggen was ably partnered by violinists Elizabeth Blumenstock and Katherine Kyme, cellist Tanya Tomkins, and harpsichordist Corey Jamason. They began with Scarlatti's Concert IX in A Minor, offering a nicely articulated performance, with careful dialog between recorder and violins and an engagingly chromatic fugal movement.

As commonly happens in my experience, Vivaldi -- so often maligned as an overproductive hack -- was the clear audience favorite. The familiar string variations over a ground bass entitled La Folia -- no doubt programmed primarily to give Verbruggen a breather -- were a high point of the evening, played with verve and rugged energy, especially by Tomkins in the demanding cello variations. Vivaldi's Concerto in A Minor (from Op. 12, No. 11) captivated with its bristling and spirited interplay, with nicely nuanced echo effects that sounded organic rather than contrived. It was in this repertoire that the writing seemed most idiomatic for recorder.

This cannot be said, unfortunately, for the three Bach pieces on the program, none of which was originally written for recorder (in fact the composer used it rarely except in cantatas and the famous Fourth Brandenburg Concerto). Undaunted, Verbruggen plays Bach on the recorder with aplomb (she has even transcribed and recorded the solo cello suites!), thus proving once again the endless adaptability of Bach's music. It's an odd reversal, in a way, of the almost-bygone practice of playing Bach on modern instruments that the composer never knew, like the piano and the clarinet.

Most successful of the attempts on Bach was his Concerto a tre in C Major, a reconstruction of the sonata for flute and obbligato harpsichord (BWV 1032) in which the right-hand keyboard part was taken by violin. Blumenstock proved a happy partner for Verbruggen, especially in the Vivace and the sunny concluding Allegro, although somewhat overshadowing the recorder in a way the originally conceived harpsichord part would not have. Verbruggen's ease in realizing rhythmic detail and decorative figuration was an ear-opener.

In another Bach transcription, Verbruggen converted the Sonata II in D Minor, originally for two keyboards with pedal obbligato, into a work for recorder and harpsichord, with Jamason sensitively partnering. But the sharp-edged, piercing tone of the smaller soprano recorder used here seemed an unlikely possibility for the kind of sound Bach must have had in mind for this piece.

Least successful was Verbruggen's attempt at Bach's Partita in A Minor for unaccompanied flute (BWV 1013), which came off as labored and stolid, with heavy-footed emphasis on low notes, deliberately odd phrasing, and excessive pauses. Some of the blame may be laid to her unfamiliarity with her borrowed instrument, since Verbruggen's own collection of specially made recorders was recently stolen while she was in Chicago.

Telemann was represented on the program by a rousing performance of his Quadro (Quartet) in G Minor. Verbruggen's crisply played solo adroitly countered the two competing violin parts, finishing off the evening with invigorating snap and zest.

(Clifford [Kip] Cranna is Musical Administrator of the San Francisco Opera, Program Advisor for the Carmel Bach Festival, and a frequent lecturer on music appreciation.) )

©2000 Clifford Cranna, all rights reserved