MUSIC REVIEW : Rifkin Leads Bach Program

The trouble with musical authenticity is not knowing when to stop. Scholarship can solve only a certain amount of a performer’s problems, limit or broaden his means and choices only so much. Ultimately, it becomes a matter of re-creative talent, of interpretive decisions made and personalities brought to bear.

In the final Coleman Chamber Concert of the season, musicologist/harpsichordist Joshua Rifkin and his award-winning, period-instrument Bach Ensemble seemed more concerned with the niceties of historicism than with communicating the vitality of the music. The results Sunday afternoon in Beckman Auditorium at Caltech proved quite pleasant, polished and polite, but not especially compelling.

The “Brandenburg” Concerto No. 5 moved fleetly and gracefully forward in Rifkin’s trademark instrumentation of one to a part.

All was subservient to airiness, effortlessness. But it seemed almost perverse the way the players denied the building harmonic tensions, refused to darken moods or imply any dramatic emphasis whatsoever. And despite the ensemble’s size, flutist Christopher Krueger had trouble projecting his part.

Similarly, Albinoni’s Trio Sonata, Opus 1, No. 12, emerged all elegant and poised tunefulness, with violinist Benjamin Hudson making gracious use of vibrato embellishment. Not a cloud in sight. All well and good until one noticed that two of the movements are marked Grave.

It took soprano Judith Nelson’s performance of Bach’s “Wedding” Cantata, BWV 202, to enliven the program. Her lightness in execution did not preclude warmth of tone, her relaxed manner did not negate expressiveness. The ensemble, too, seemed more involved, allowing themselves some playfulness in the lilting “Sich uben im Lieben,” and capturing the jaunty spirit of the Gavotte.

Bach’s Oboe Concerto in E-flat, a reconstruction by Rifkin from later sources, rounded out the program, with Stephen Hammer providing a gentle rhythmic swing to the solo line but little in the way of emotional nuance.