As Garry Clarke and Baroque Band launched into George Frideric Handel’s Overture to Ronaldo Wednesday evening, Symphony Center’s Grainger Ballroom was transformed into a salon; an acoustic and visual gem of a space, the ballroom’s warm setting was the perfect place to hear the Band.
Joining the ensemble of Baroque specialists was cellist Jennifer Morsches in Nicola Porpora’s Cello Concerto in G Major. The concerto is a particularly difficult piece, loaded with treacherous string crossings, double stops, and rapid-fire staccato. Morsches seemed to wrestle with the piece through its duration, at times getting the better or it with a rich tone in the middle and lower registers and an expressive cadenza in the second movement. Other times, however, her intonation faltered and her tone in the higher registers made for an uneven showing.
The Band continued with three suites, the first from Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s La Comtesse d’Escarbagnas, from a play about a woman who leaves her rural home for Paris and returns with a desire to replicate big city life in the country. Charpentier’s writing allowed the Band to spread its wings, showcasing its full, balanced sound.
Henry Purcell’s suite from The Indian Queen begins with an ominous fugue, and the Band emphasized the composer’s creative employment of dynamics to heighten the suspense. The middle “trumpet tunes” erupted with energy, as did a frenzied hornpipe.
The most rewarding of the three suites was Georg Philipp Telemann’s Ouvertre a la Pastorelle. Telemann’s ingenuity of style and ornamentation was on full display, and the Band played with agility and grace throughout the gentle opening, rollicking middle movements, and a playful ending in the carillon.
Jennifer Morsches returned to the soloist role alongside cellist Craig Trompeter for Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Cellos in G minor. Though a slightly mismatched duo—Trompeter elicited a rich, round tone, while Morsches’ playing felt harried—the two thundered through the stormy opening Allegro with great ferocity. The middle Largo was relaxed, allowing the cello lines to breathe easier as their lengthy melody lines continued to play off each other. The closing Allegro brought more high-flying Baroque acrobatics from soloists and orchestra alike, eliciting fervent applause from the appreciate audience.
Catch Baroque Band again during its popular (and free) Super Bowl Baroque Sunday concert at the Chicago Cultural Center on February 5, at 3pm. You’ll probably be home before kickoff, or at least for the good commercials.
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