Baroque Music Dazzles!

by

Lyn Bronson

Having experienced the Carmel Bach Festival on the Monterey Peninsula for so many decades, we tend to forget how vital and fresh the music of Bach’s contemporaries can be. When the Carmel Music Society presented the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra last night at Sunset Center, there was only one work on the program by Bach, and this was an arrangement for recorder by Frans Brűggen of material from one of the keyboard concerti.  Elsewhere on this program we heard Suite d’orchestre from Castor et Polux by Rameau, the Concerto for Recorder & Flute in E minor by Telemann, TWV 52:e1, and the Vivaldi Concerto for Violin in B-flat Major, RV375. Conducting this fine ensemble was the distinguished and versatile Nicholas McGegan, who brought with him on this occasion some fine soloists – Marion Verbruggen (soprano and alto recorder), Stephen Schultz (Baroque transverse flute), and Elizabeth Blumenstock (violin).

We hear relatively little music by Rameau in Carmel Bach Festival programs, thus the inclusion of the Suite d’orchestre from Castor et Polux on this occasion tended to remind us of what we had been missing. This music has sparkle and wit. However, it wasn’t only the music, but also the impeccable ensemble by musicians totally on top of their repertoire that produced music making last night on a level we rarely hear at Sunset Center.

Another seldom heard work on the program was the Telemann Concerto for recorder and flute in E minor, and the performance by Verbruggen and Schultz was a triumph of beautifully scaled playing that had a lovely mixture of grace, charm and dazzling virtuosity. The lovely playing by Verbruggen and Schultz was stylish, but never pedantic, and it always enhanced the music without drawing too much attention to themselves.

After intermission violinist Elizabeth Blumenstock performed the Vivaldi B-flat Major Violin Concerto, which sometimes numbed us with its constant alternations of tonic and dominant, and sequences that tended to be predictable. Nevertheless, her depth of musicianship and easy technical mastery were impressive and ultimately reached a level of inevitability that completely won us over. Her elegant performance of the slow movement was totally winning and she blew us away with her exciting playing in the last movement.

In the final Bach concerto for soprano recorder, Marion Verbruggen impressed us with her dazzling artistry. Anyone who has experienced soprano recorders (usually made of plastic) in elementary school programs, would have heard an entirely more exalted performance on this occasion from Verbruggen, whose lovely sound, elegant shaping of phrases and natural sounding ornamentation and embellishment represent an awesome level of achievement.

 A member of the audience was overheard saying at the end of the concert − "this is the way Carmel Bach Festival performances ought to sound."

 

 

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