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Alix Goolden Performance Hall
January 27, 2007
Infamously, in 1904 the German musicologist Oskar Adolph Hermann Schmitz (no, I am not making up the name) called England "Das Land ohne Musik." (Note the definite article - the one and only land without music.)
Schmitz certainly meant the comment to sting. About the worst thing you can say to someone is that he doesn't like music. Shakespeare wrote that,
More recently, when Leonard Cohen really wanted to tick off an ex-lover he wrote (in "Hallelujah"):
Of course, Schmitz's view was bunk and has to be seen against a background of pre-World War I imperial rivalry. It also has to be seen against a background of academic rivalry. Musicology was invented by German academics and, not coincidentally, it turned out that all the great composers were German.
Mind you, you wouldn't necessarily know that England wasn't at least a few players short of a string section from the composers represented on this evening's programme. There was the Saxon Handel, Francesco Geminiani (from Lucca), Carl Friedrich Abel (another German) and Pieter Hellendaal, a Dutchman. (Can you name another 18th composer from the Netherlands? I thought not but you don't hear any of that "Land ohne Musik" nonsense about Holland.)
We did hear works by three native born Englishmen: William Corbett, Henry Purcell and Charles Avison. (Admittedly, the Avison was an arrangement of Scarlatti harpsichord sonatas.)
Regardless of the national origins of the composers, every piece on this concert was well worth hearing. This was partly due to the high quality (and remarkable variety) of the music and partly to the high quality of the performances. The intonation was excellent throughout the performance and each piece was individually characterised as the musicians responded to the stylistic demands of the music.
The evening began with a performance of Handel's Grand Concerto Op. 6, No. 7. The twelve Grand Concertos of Op. 6 were written in the autumn of 1739 and published the next year, making these works 25 years later than the early Handel works featured on yesterday's Festival programme. In the intervening years, Handel's music had changed and so too did Destrubé's approach. The music is noble and so was the performance. Even the Hornpipe which concludes the concerto was noble - more a dance for an admiral than for Jack Tar.
Noteworthy about the performance were the beautiful embellishments, almost little cadenzas, that Destrubé added at the end of movements.
Geminiani's Concerto Grosso, "La Folia" was completely different. This is a showy arrangement of Corelli's already showy Violin Sonata Op. 5, No. 12. It was given a high energy and invigorating performance with the solo violinists and cellist (Laura Kramer) tossing off their demanding parts with aplomb.
Pieter Hellendaal is almost forgotten today but Pacific Baroque made a strong case for including his works more frequently on concert programmes.
There has been something of a Carl Friedrich Abel revival in recent years and Pacific Baroque showed why with an elegant performance of elegant music that will always be doomed to be called pre-classical despite the fact that the composer had no notion that he was producing something pre-anything. Noteworthy in this performance was Valerie Finding's work on the harpsichord as she opened up the textures in the continuo part to suit the, well, pre-classical style.
William Corbett's Concerto alla Siciliana is from his Bizzarie Universalie, a set of thirty-five concerti, each in a distinct national style - this, obviously, is supposed to be Sicilian. It sounds like a baroque concerto grosso to me, full of the tunefulness one associates with Sicily or, perhaps, English music. In any case, it is a pleasing, playful piece and PBO's performance was lots of fun.
Purcell's Three Parts upon a Ground was the earliest composition on the programme (1678) and probably the strongest piece of music on the programme. It was one of those masterpieces that transcends any particular musical style. One can only say to musicians that essay it that they must trust to their own musical instincts. Fortunately, the instincts of the musicians on this occasion were excellent and the performance was one of the highlights of the evening.
If the Purcell wasn't the highlight of the evening, then the Avison was. We heard the sixth of the twelve concerti Avison produced by arranging harpsichord sonatas by Scarlatti for string orchestra. No. 6 is the most famous of the series and has been since the eighteenth century. (Laurence Sterne mentions it in Tristam Shandy in way that suggests it was widely known.)
This concerto is one of my personal favourites and it was with some anxiety that I awaited its performance. The piece is famous for its second movement, marked con furia. To my taste, most performances do not put in enough passion. But not on this occasion. Led by Destrubé's headlong but musically intelligent reading of the first violin part, there was lots of furia to go around. I was still all aflutter through the succeeding adagio and the lovely vivacemente.
To my delight, the orchestra played the con furia again as the encore - with, if anything, more fire. It was a delightful end to an excellent concert. You should definitely get out to hear this orchestra when they are back in Victoria a year from now.
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