A Salut! Baroque concert is always a well-curated one. Audiences never tire of the selections. Quite often they feature a healthy dash of the Eastern European baroque. And they always last a tasteful 1hr 15 mins.
This concert opened with Karl Jenkins’ Allegretto from Palladio. You’d be forgiven for thinking Karl Jenkins was a North German composer who had settled in early Georgian London, or in Corelli’s Rome. In fact, the piece was composed in 1995 and seeks to imitate many of the traditional forms of the Baroque, albeit in a much simpler, modern way.
Erlebach, on the other hand, is renowned for his mastery of one of those forms – the Orchestral Suite. His Ouverture-Suite No 6 in G minor featured all the Frenchness one would expect of the genre – an Air Entrée, Air Gavotte, Air La Plainte and, interestingly, a Chaconne. Jack Peggie on snare drum added to the Frenchness and emphasised that this is loud, fun, dance music. The closing cadence on recorders by Sally Melhuish and Alana Blackburn in the Air Gavotte was delightful. The Air La Plainte was, as its title suggests, plaintive. La Plainte is a theme many French composer dealt with at the time – think back to Marin Marais’ heart-rending Plainte – here with falling sighing motifs and the obligatory falling chromatic fourth played by Jude Hill on Baroque double bass. The rustic dance element was emphasised by John Ma’s consistently fiery and lively performance on violin.
Short pieces for Baroque guitar by Santiago de Murcia were performed by George Wills, accompanied by Peggie on tambourine. They served as delightful intermezzi, and as complex pieces in their own right. Wills’ phrasing was very thoughtful and it is as though his performance spoke.
The overture to Rameau’s Zoroastre is so violently different as to be almost form-shattering. It turns the overture on its head – it centres on dramatically sinister repetition in the bass, only to shapeshift into a courtly dance, and then oscillate between the two. It has a very modern appeal. Ma despatched fiery improvised cadences and his dynamic control was on full display as he made a single note traverse the entire dynamic range.
Then we take a trip to the Highlands. Niel Gow’s Lament was composed in 1805. It has all the hallmarks of Scottish music of the era, with its distinctive pentatonic scale and much melodic repetition. It builds up to a delightful crescendo as much of the ensemble becomes involved. Turlough O’Carolan’s Jig to James Betagh was livelier. Blackburn shone, especially in her performance of the fast-paced variation featuring the soprano recorder.
With John Playford’s Wallom Green we have a return to dance music. Ma plays ponticello to give a delicious glassy effect.
Telemann’s Ouverture-Suite in B-flat major is an enigmatic piece. The Colombine recalls the distinctive theme of La bella pastora. Only this time it is strangely mercurial, jolting violently from piano to forte, and from slow to quick. The closing Mezzetin en Turc bears heavy Eastern influences. It made for a rollicking ending, with tambourine and distinctly Turkish key-changes.
That paved the way for this concert’s exploration of the East. Dmitrie Cametir was a Moldovian nobleman, statesman, philosopher and historian. Somehow he found time to compose music. Although he vied against an ever-encroaching Ottoman Empire, his music (not to mention his surname) has decidedly Turkish colours. Ma plays sotto voce to introduce the theme of the first Syrba, before it develops into a rustic festival of sound. Monika Kornel on harpsichord introduces the theme for the Ostropesul before a dramatic end.
The highight of this concert was Jose Pla’s Sonata in D minor. It features only two movements – Allegro and Allegro assai. The first showcased the sheer virtuosity of Ma and Brad Tham on violin. In the second we get hints of the Rococo, with idiomatic Rococo phrases that seem almost to quote Pergolesi.
The final two pieces were by JS Bach. The first was an arrangement of his organ chorale prelude on the hymn Ich ruf zi dir, Herr Jesu Christ. This is quiet music. But here it was played diffidently – the effect was sometimes scratchy, and it would have been better if Ma had played the cantus firmus a bit louder.
But the second was an inventive rearrangement of Bach’s familiar Violin Concerto in D minor into a jazz setting. The best was the closing Alla mode, which was here played in major mode. It was as though the stolid Thuringian had crossed paths with a Midwest fiddler.
