A romantic Roman holiday opens season for Music Before 1800
Music Before 1800 launched its 50th anniversary season with “From Rome with Love” on Sunday at Riverside Church. Soprano Amanda Forsythe and Pacific MusicWorks performed works by composers from the Roman School of the Baroque era. The large Neogothic room at Riverside, complete with stained glass windows and a painted ceiling, certainly provided an appropriately palatial venue for such entertainment.
The format for the concert too hearkened back to Baroque Rome, when such music was performed in palaces as entertainment, rather than churches and concert halls. Artistic Director Bill Barclay dubbed the concept “relaxed performances.” To wit, three different Italian wines were served during the concert to enhance the experience. The flow of wine didn’t impede the concert, although extended commentary from Barclay did. Fund raising appeals are par for the course, but the evening’s yadda-yadda meandered excessively.
Pacific MusicWorks is headed by lutenist, conductor, and Baroque opera specialist Stephen Stubbs. For this performance, he was joined by harpist Maxine Eilander and gambist Cristiano Cantadin. La Chapelle Harmonique was originally scheduled to perform, but visa issues precluded their traveling to the United States. This undoubtedly was the reason for last-minute changes to the program and the Italian-based Cantadin rushing off to the airport.
Popular tastes nowadays run towards the Venetian School of Baroque composers epitomized by the music of Vivaldi. Rome, however, was its equal due to the concentration of artistic geniuses in the Eternal City whose creative impulses were primed by papal and noble patronage.
Musicians such as Giacomo Frescobaldi, Luigi Rossi, and Giacomo Carissimi, all of whose music was performed at this concert, wrote oratorios, masses, motets, and cantatas for the enjoyment of their benefactors. The young Handel was also lured to the Rome. By 1707, he was composing sacred music for the clergy and secular cantatas and oratorios for the nobility.
Stubbs, Eilander, and Cantadin are musicians of rare quality, who play with great sensitivity, as well as vibrancy. Their wide tonal palette ranged from the sweetest and purist of sounds to a cultivated earthiness which adds excitement and danger to a broad range of emotions. The same can be said of Forsythe, who possess a limpid soprano capable of floating and caressing the most delicate of musical lines, but with body enough to convey fury and passion.
The concert opened with “Apritevi inferni,” a sacred cantata composed by Carissimi for voice and continuo. Forsythe sailed fearlessly through the florid lines and delighted in bringing Carissimi’s word-paintings to life, especially the final cries to war which end the cantata.
Three selections from Giovanni Paolo Foscarini’s Li cinque libri della Chitarra alla Spagnola published in Rome in 1640 were then performed by Eilander and Stubbs. Foscarini was an Italian guitarist, lutenist, theorist and composer, who was held in high regard throughout Europe, especially at the court of Archduke Alberto in the Spanish Netherlands. This undoubtedly accounted for the Spanish flavor in three short works which permitted Stubbs to exploit the full colors and dramatic range of the lute. Eilander’s lyrical playing on the harp was as beautiful as it was beguiling.
A selection of vocal and instrumental pieces by Rossi were performed as a set. Forsythe charmed in “Mio ben”, an aria from his opera L’Orfeo, which premiered in Paris in 1647. In Gelosia, a secular cantata for soprano and continue, the singer dazzled as she expressed the mercurial twists and turns of a jealous heart. Her voice took flight as she sang of fury and betrayal, but expressed her desire to be rid of such violent feelings in parched, white tones.
Cento partite sopra passacaglia was Frescobaldi’s last work, and widely considered to be his most impressive musical accomplishment. Eilander and Stubbs played as one as they explored Frescobaldi’s complex textures from which melodies emerged delicate and clear. Without pause, Forsythe rose and launched into the violent emotions of Virgilio Mazzocchi’s Sdegno, Campion Audace. For all the drama, however, Forsythe tinged the impressive leaps and fiery fioritura with a sly tongue-in-cheek insouciance.
The second half of the concert was devoted solely to the music of Handel. It began with the 22-year old composer’s “Lascia la spina” from Il trionfo del Tempo, a melody which he would return to repeatedly during his long career. Einlander proved to be Forsythe’s equal in performing Handel’s musical lines with elegance and expression.
Handel’s G-minor Sonata allowed the audience to savor the full range of Contadin’s gamba artistry. The four-movement work alternates between slow movements and brilliant displays of virtuosity. His playing in the haunting Adagio was ideally blended poise and beauty.
Handel composed Ah, che pur troppo è vero in Florence in 1707. This rarely heard cantata is the most intimate of musical experiences, in which Handel expressed in arias and recitatives the pains and pleasures of love. Forsythe again enchanted with the ease of her vocal production, as she caressed Handel’s musical lines and floated high notes of crystalline purity. Contadin also impressed with the graceful ornamentation he bestowed on a melodic line.
Passacaglia della vita, attributed to the early Roman Baroque composer Stefan Landi, was the sole encore. A touch of Spain infused this lively piece which warns of the inevitability of death in a rather jocular manner.
Music Before 1800 presents Vox Luminis, 4 p.m. Oct. 27. mb1800.org
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