MUSIC REVIEW : Pinnock, English Concert

The pleasures of the Baroque program delivered before a large, enthusiastic audience at Ambassador Auditorium on Thursday by Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert could not be measured in decibels.

Directing his finely honed ensemble of period-instrument performers from the harpsichord, Pinnock brought us music that makes its points through subtlety, charm and skillful manipulation of modest instrumental means.

The indisposition of the announced soprano soloist, Julia Gooding, occasioned one major program shift: the substitution of the most familiar of Telemann’s dancey, French-style orchestral suites for a Bach cantata, eliciting no complaints from this quarter.

The six-movement Suite in C was wittily, vigorously projected, with Paul Goodwin leading the oboe trio with unfailing stamina and aplomb.

Half a dozen instrumental extracts from Purcell’s “The Fairy Queen”--by turns lyrical, comical and moody, always marked by the composer’s imaginative, off-kilter harmonies--could be faulted only for their brevity.

Vivaldi, who would seem currently to be in disfavor among the antiquarians, was represented by his expendable, piston-driven “Concerto alla rustica,” more fittingly by the grand and unfamiliar Concerto in A minor for Two Violins (the suave and incisive Simon Standage, the rather less fluent Walter Reiter), RV 523, which makes its points through manic rhythmicality and harmonic daring.

Concerti grossi by J. F. Fasch and John Avison, one of the latter’s reworkings of keyboard sonatas by his contemporary, Domenico Scarlatti, proved more enticing for execution than content--bassoonist Alberto Grazzi’s precisely tuned, dexterous grumbling in the Fasch being a particular delight--but easy to take in Pinnock’s lively, tactfully ornamented editions and the band’s strong, sweet-toned response.