November 30, 2006 Issue                                       

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©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Masterful rendition of ‘Four Seasons’ by Philomel
by MICHAEL CARUSO

COFFEEHOUSE CONCERT: The Bread and Cup Coffeehouse will feature Byard Lancaster and the Germantown Oratorio Choir on Sunday, Dec. 3, 7 p.m. The world-renowned jazz instrumentalist will share the stage with the Germantown Oratorio Choir for this program. In addition, the Coffeehouse will have its traditional time of open microphone. The coffeehouse is in the Longstreth Auditorium of The First Presbyterian Church in Germantown, 35 W. Chelten Ave., every first Sunday from 7 to 9 p.m. Admission and refreshments are free with contributions accepted. 215-843-8811.

The Philomel Baroque Orchestra opened its 31st season this past weekend with a trio of concerts highlighted by performances of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Although the last of the three took place in Chestnut Hill’s St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church on Sunday afternoon, where I usually catch Philomel, I took advantage of a day and evening off from teaching to hear the first concert on Friday night, which was played in Old Christ Episcopal Church in Society Hill, a structure contemporaneous with the music of Vivaldi and George Frideric Handel, one of whose scores was also programmed.

Although Vivaldi’s music in general, and The Four Seasons in particular, can sound perfectly convincing when played on modern instruments — given players’ sensitivity to baroque performance practices, of course — it never comes across quite as effectively on modern instruments as it does on violins, violas, cellos and the like constructed according to the fashion of the baroque period, itself. In the case of The Four Seasons, for instance, the timbral tone painting and the coloristic theatricality intended by the composer are seriously muted by the more homogeneous tones of modern instruments. There’s a silvery yet tawny clarity to gut-strung strings that their vibrato-laden metal-strung descendents simply cannot duplicate or replicate. There’s a pipey edge to a wooden recorder that no metal flute can approximate with its plush sounds.

And so The Four Seasons often becomes little more than a collection of tunes when, in fact, it was meant to denote the traits and connote the moods of “Spring,” “Summer,” “Autumn,” and “Winter,” not merely as quartets of months along the pathway of a calendar but as revelations of time’s passing, season by season, year by year, life unto death.

HILL AREA YOUTHS PERFORM: The Philadelphia Boys Choir & Chorale under the direction of artistic director, Jeffrey R. Smith, will present its 39th Annual Holiday Concert, ‘Tis the Season, on Saturday, Dec. 16, 8 p.m., at the University of Pennsylvania’s Irvine Auditorium, 3401 Spruce St. Tickets can be purchased by calling 215-222-3500, Ext. 1, or by visiting www.phillyboyschoir.org. Ticket prices range from $25-$43 for reserved seating. ‘Tis the Season will feature a variety of Christmas and Hanukah-related works. Seen here are Hill area members of the choir: Back Row: Matthias Bell, Oreland, and Keith O’Hara, Blue Bell. Middle Row: Matthew Edwards, Mt. Airy, and James Lawrence, Wyndmoor. Front Row: Jonathan Barr, Mt. Airy, and Tyler Pinder-Hudson, Lafayette Hill. (Missing from the photo are Phillip Ianozi and Peter Jenkins, both from Oreland.)

I suspect that Philadelphia boasts no more treasured church than Old Christ Episcopal. Not only is it one of the most noble and flawless examples of colonial America’s classical Georgian architecture, but it was the site where most of the Founding Fathers of the Republic worshipped when they lived in Philadelphia during the meetings of the First and Second Continental Congresses and the Constitutional Convention, and the subsequent writings of the Declaration of Independence and the Federal Constitution.

It’s also a peerless venue for performances by period instrument ensembles such as Philomel. Its size, seating several hundred but no more, is appropriate for instruments that produce a smaller volume of sound than do their modern counterparts. Even more important, its old-fashioned construction of brick and plaster walls, wooden interior columns and graceful moldings, and slate floors offer an acoustical ambience that enhances and resonates the music rather than smothers and suffocates it.

The eight members of the Philomel Baroque Orchestra took full advantage of Old Christ Church’s musical blessings Friday night and gave sterling renditions of all four of the concerti that comprise The Four Seasons. My favorite of the lot was “Summer,” in which concertmistress Nancy Wilson played with technical wizardry and consummate musicianship. It also featured the loveliest baroque viola playing, from Peter Bucknell, I’ve ever heard at a Philomel concert.

CHAMBER MUSIC

The Philadelphia Orchestra continued its tradition of offering chamber music recitals performed by individual members of the ensemble Sunday afternoon in the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater with a program that was highlighted by the playing of the Wister String Quartet. The foursome is one of the longest standing chamber music groups formed from within the orchestra, and two of its members, violinist Nancy Bean and cellist Lloyd Smith, are Chestnut Hill neighbors. The other players in the Wister are violinist Davyd Booth and violist Pamela Fay.

The Wister’s taking over the entire second half of the program was the result of music director Christoph Eschenbach’s withdrawal from the program as pianist in Robert Schumann’s Three Romances for Oboe & Piano. Into the breach stepped the Wister, performing Franz Schubert’s String Quartet No. 13 in A minor and the single-movement Quartet in C minor. In both scores the Wister made clear that it’s a true chamber music ensemble, one that not merely plays together with a convincing level of ensemble but that offers a discernible personality as an ensemble, that transcends the separate characters of the four individual musicians.

That personality can best be described as “forceful sensitivity.” Even in the often sentimental music of Schubert, occasionally overladen with luscious melodies and sumptuous harmonies, the Wister balanced the sweetness in both scores with a clarity of contrapuntal texture, a rhythmic vitality and a tonal toughness that revealed the music’s intellectual integrity as well as its emotional potency.

BACH ON THE HILL

The Lukens Piano Trio will be joined by a full contingent of musical colleagues for an all-Bach concert to be performed 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 17 in the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill. Violinist Michael Locati, cellist David Moulton and pianist Kristin Ditlow will be joined by Germantown baritone Randall Scarlata, among others, in a program that combines instrumental and vocal music.

When I asked Locati to pinpoint the inspiration for this marked departure from the Lukens Trio’s normal approach to programming, he recalled taking part in the Bach Aria Group Festival in Stoneybrook on Long Island for 10 years.

“One of the faculty members was the soprano, Julianne Baird,” he mentioned, “and we performed several arias from Bach’s cantatas. That was a repertoire that I and most other string players knew nothing about, and yet after learning the violin parts in those excerpts from several different cantatas, I fell in love with the music. I’ve always wanted to return to that repertoire and give a concert that includes some of Bach’s vocal music as well as his instrumental works.”

The program will include the Second Sonata for Violin & Harpsichord with Michael Locati and Ditlow, a Trio Sonata and the “Brandenburg” Concerto No. 5. Tickets are $10 at the door.