Juilliard415 closes Music Before 1800 season with joyful “Corelli in Chiquitos”
Introducing Music Before 1800’s season finale Sunday afternoon at Corpus Christi Church, artistic director Bill Barclay remarked that “world music is early music.” This is clear through the range of what is typically thought of as European music, up through the end of the 18th century. But world cultures have been interconnected and mixing together since long before the age of electronic communications, much less train travel, and Barclay’s programming has consistently brought this to life.
Sunday was a fine culmination of this idea and season, musically satisfying and historically illuminating. The performers were Juilliard415, the student early music ensemble led by Robert Mealy from the violin, and augmented for the final pieces by the Juilliard Community Chorus, directed by Adrian O. Rodriguez. The program’s title was “Corelli in Chiquitos: Music from the Missions,” the contents a collection of music from Corelli and the other major names of the Italian Baroque, along with music played—and created—in and around Jesuit settlements in 17th and 18ᵗʰ century Bolivia.
This was a colorful, and often fascinating, melange of Italian, Spanish, and specifically South American styles. The project was triggered, according to Mealy’s note in the program, by a 2017 email from the US State Department asking if Juilliard’s Historical Performance department would be interested in taking part in an international baroque festival in Bolivia. That led to the story of this concert, which began in the late 17th century, with the Jesuits arriving in the Chiquitos region of south-eastern Bolivia, bringing with them music and instruments. The scores were copied and recopied through the centuries, and some 15,000 manuscripts survive, original pieces, some altered by the effect of copying and time, transcriptions of indigenous dances, etc.
This was a robust, refreshing experience, with enthusiastic performances. Juilliard415 may not have the consistent technical skill of the established early music groups—rhythms and articulations are slightly soft and intonation is not always precise—and nor does the Community Chorus have the same heft of professional groups. On the other hand it was actually better for the spirit of the music. If historical performance is meant to show what people cared about and how they made music together centuries ago, then Sunday was a truthful demonstration of that.
That meant a strong, social quality in the music, from the opening Sonata Chiquitana IX by Ignazio Balbi. The “Chiquitana” meant it was a surviving version of what was played in Bolivia as opposed to what might have been Balbi’s fair copy. Precise, concise, convivial, this was fun to hear. These altered pieces were the highlights of the program.
Corelli’s Sonata da camera in D Major, Op. 2, no. 1, Vivaldi’s “Il Piacere” Violin Concerto in C Major (led by soloist Jimena Burga Lopera), and one of Locatelli’s terrific Introduzione teatrale—Op. 4, no. 6 in C Major—were the most technically polished and stylish compositions. They were easy to admire, but they didn’t have the earthiness and the communitarian quality of the vibrant Sonata Chiquitana XVIII (without attribution) and three fantastic indigenous dances from the Codex Martinez Compañon.
Those felt much more like people making music together rather than playing a score together, with spontaneity and flow. A showcase for the colorful, plummy voice of soprano Gimena Sánchez Rivera, Domenico Zipoli’s prayer setting In hoc mundo, was likewise admirable, but the music that brought together ensemble and chorus was wonderful.
These were spiritual songs—not liturgy—from Jan Josef Ignác Brentner, Juan de Araujo, Sebastián Durón, and Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco, all but the first in Spanish. The plain language of the settings, the expansive, joyful feelings, and the humanist drive of the performers got at the whole point of people gathering together with music.
