MUSIC REVIEW : Camerata Musica-Berlin Plays Ambassador

In this high noon of the authenticity movement, a string band playing Baroque music on modern instruments can seem an irrelevant anachronism. But if they play as well as the Camerata Musica-Berlin did Thursday at Ambassador Auditorium, such groups still spread joy.

Heard in the middle of a series of Southland appearances with nightly changes of venue, the 17 musicians had their share of minor ensemble lapses. But they also played with bracing vigor and pertinent, stylish musicality.

A largely unhackneyed program aided the cause, and the Camerata was at its best in the most distinctive music, such as Handel’s Concerto Grosso in D minor, No. 10 of the Opus 6 set. There the ensemble produced clearly defined rhythmic motives and sharp dynamic contrast, in a crisp, characterful reading.

Cellists and harpsichordist excepted, Camerata Musica-Berlin plays standing up. It also operates effectively without a conductor, under the attentive leadership of concertmaster Wolf-Dieter Batzdorf.

The program was centered on Vivaldi. Batzdorf, principal second Axel Wilczok and cellists Andreas Greger and Manfred Herzog all had energetically realized solo opportunities in the framing Vivaldi concertos.

For truly dazzling virtuosity, there was Susanne Erhardt, who tootled blithely through an arduous Vivaldi Concerto in C for sopranino recorder. She is surely among the most demonstrative of recorder players, suggesting Galway on the penny whistle in her extroverted manner.

But Erhardt also delivered all the notes, securely in place and suave in sound. She embellished the part thoughtfully, and impersonated Jacob van Eyck’s “The Nightingale” with mercurial brio in an encore before intermission.

Batzdorf and Wilczok injected rather less excitement into their sturdy traversal of Bach’s Double Concerto, heavy on vibrato in the slow movement. Alessandro Scarlatti’s Concerto Grosso No. 3 completed the printed program, with movements by Britten, Respighi and Vivaldi offered in encore.