Music Reviews : Calliope Quartet in Historic Sites Concert

The Chamber Music in Historic Sites series is a lovely idea, a marvelously offbeat yet elegant vehicle for presenting live music. But sometimes, the surroundings and the material don’t quite mix.

Indeed, the cozy, wood-paneled music room of Pasadena’s 1912-vintage Fenyes Mansion was a rather staid and cramped locale in which to hear Calliope, the lively Renaissance quartet. On this warm, clear Sunday afternoon, the irresistible dance music that Calliope served up seemed to belong outdoors.

In any case, in the first of two sets, Calliope knocked out a typical selection of its repertory on a wide variety of old instruments. Steve Lundahl, subbing for regular member Lawrence Benz, was a mellifluous advocate of the sackbut (an early trombone) while Allan Dean performed with agility on the cornetto, the shawm and a variety of recorders. Lucy Bardo struggled a bit in the beginning with the creaky demands of the bass viol and vielle, and Ben Harms displayed considerable dexterity manipulating a pipe and a drum simultaneously.

All would take up additional instruments as well, unfazed by sudden shifts in instrumentation, tempo or meter.

While they left their more contemporary pursuits for another time, Calliope did provide some modern insight on the theme and variations idea. In four different settings of the tune “L’Homme arme,” the group took us through three increasingly elaborate 15th-Century versions and then added one of their own, in a more straight-forward treatment that didn’t stray far from the tune.