Music and Dance : Baroque Orchestra Performs Handel

The Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra, led by music director Gregory Maldonado, opened its fifth season Friday at the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica with a typically spirited, occasionally problematic performance.

The period-instrument ensemble devoted its concert (repeated Saturday and Sunday in Long Beach and Pasadena) to a single work, Handel’s “Water Music,” or, more precisely, to the three distinct suites that make up the complete aquatic oeuvre of the composer.

With Maldonado standing at the concertmaster’s position, his bow serving double-duty as baton, the orchestra displayed a vigorous approach to rhythm and a fine sense of the tunefulness of this music. Clearly, the orchestra’s strengths outweigh its liabilities.

The strings, particularly the violins, exhibited an attractively wheezy sheen and ready expressiveness. The horns impressed as well, despite momentary burbles, with their hand-stopped technique supplying a wealth of articulation and color.

The overall success depended upon which suite, and therefore which grouping of instruments, was being played. The Suite in G turned out most enjoyable, with its pared-down instrumentation of flute and strings revealing diaphanous textures and neat execution. Problems with balances and an occasionally heavy gait were apparent in the more thickly scored Suite in F, otherwise performed with enthusiasm.

Graver faults surfaced with the Suite in D, the valveless trumpet players--their instruments the most different from their modern counterparts of any in the group--proving severely overtaxed. A little inauthenticity, in the form of modern valved trumpets, would have gone a long way here--anathema, of course, to a period-instrument group.

Finally, a quibble: using the archlute and theorbo as continuo instruments looked nice, but they were seriously outgunned most of the time; a harpsichord would have been most welcome.