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Charlie White Theatre, Sidney
August 3, 2007
As I left the house on Friday evening, my wife Dorothy asked who it was I was going to hear. I think she must have misheard me: "Raving Baroque?" she said.
The name confusion persisted at the theatre, where it was pointed out to me that the tickets were for an ensemble called "Raven Barque".
Raving or Barking? Certainly it is not that many years ago that the notion of a group of local musicians delving into the music of 16th century Venice would have seemed to be one or the other, but no more.
Friday night's concert was a pleasing mixture of the (over-) familiar and the so-obscure-it-hurts given in performances which, while they might have had the occasional technical shortcoming, were as spirited and committed as one could have wished.
The programme's title, courtesy of Don Kissinger, used the Beechamian - if such a word there be - notion of "Lollipops", highly tuneful and popular pieces Beecham liked to use as encores, and coupled it with "Truffles" (Kissinger's own conceit) - music which is much harder to find, although I don't believe pigs were involved at all, and which is - perhaps - more of an acquired taste.
The Ensemble's keyboard player, Peter Smith, has prepared scores in modern notation from a virtually-illegible, wood-block-printed score-book published in Venice in 1608. The four pieces were quite possibly receiving their first performances in almost 400 years and it was quite extraordinary to listen to them, seated in air-conditioned comfort, and reflect that these pieces were published almost two centuries before the first Europeans visited Vancouver Island.
The three canzonas - one by the almost disappointingly well-known Giovanni Gabrieli, two by the wonderfully obscure Florentio Maschera - were delightful, if a little sombre. Despite a slightly hesitant start to the Gabrieli, the evening's opening work, the playing was impressive and the imitative lines clearly delineated.
Giovanni Battista Grillo's Capriccio a Quattro, with its frequent changes of tempo and metre, alternating between duple and triple time, must have presented considerable challenges to the players. Smith, directing from the keyboard (which wasn't actually involved) guided the ensemble through the choppy waters safely and with no little panâche
As to the "lollipops", I confess that the two works by Telemann were not particularly familiar, nevertheless they certainly provided fodder for the notion that Telemann - for years now the holder of the "Most Prolific Composer" title in the Guinness Book of Records - is actually a rather better composer than his facility would suggest.
I was particularly taken with the Concerto for Two Violas, in which Marian Moody and Janet Sankey were the sterling soloists. Telemann seemed to focus on the lyrical possibilities of the instrument, rather than virtuosity and the result was most enjoyable.
Although Telemann's reputation has undoubtedly been on the upswing recently, to my ears there is still an unbridgeable gulf between his talent, however sophisticated and prolix, and the genius of Bach and Vivaldi.
Kissinger was the splendid soloist in Vivaldi's Violin Concerto Op.8 No.9, from the same set, "Il Cimento dell' Armonia e dell' Inventione", as the ubiquitous "Four Seasons".
Although arguably not as melodically memorable as those four concertos, Op.8 No.9 nonetheless has much to commend it and could have come from no other's pen.
For me, the highlight of the evening was in its greatest music, the Concerto for Two Violins by Bach. Philip Manning and Kevin O'Riordan played the solo parts with confidence, maturity and considerable style. Tempos were well chosen, the interplay between the soloists was very fine, there was energy and life aplenty in the outer movements and the wonderful, cantabile slow movement, taken at a gently flowing tempo, was exquisite.
The evening closed with what Kissinger described as probably the greatest baroque "lollipop" of them all.
Which is probably an accurate description of Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D, although it is interesting to reflect that this popularity is entirely a product of the last three or four decades and the (in)famous recording by Jean-François Paillard.
The canon was well-played, although, as usual, I found myself wishing that Johann had exercised a little more editorial control and perhaps removed half of the repetitions of the ground bass.
No doubt my colleague, MiV early music specialist James Young would have amused himself counting bows - for what it's worth, a "source close to the ensemble" told me that around 50 per cent of the players were fielding baroque bows.
While it is true that on occasion intonation was a little insecure and that the fact that there was no designated leader of the group led to slightly sloppy ensemble at times, these were essentially minor imperfections; considering that this was a recently-formed ensemble giving its first public performance, it is remarkable that there were not more such instances.
A most enjoyable evening, which is repeated tonight (Saturday August 4) at 7:30.
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