Music Reviews : Brown Leads a Celebration of Corelli

Concerts come and concerts go, but Iona Brown’s latest appearance with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra will stick in the aural memory of at least one listener for some time to come.

Leading the orchestra from the concertmaster’s chair Wednesday night at Ambassador Auditorium, Brown guided a cannily selected and poignantly executed program from strength to strength, each work benefiting from its neighbor, the concert gaining momentum as it progressed.

The second half was devoted to the music of Corelli (who turns 339 this week) and the reactions of two composers to it.

Beginning with Corelli’s Concerto Grosso Opus 6, No. 2, and continuing with Bach’s Fugue on a Theme of Corelli (played sensitively by Patricia Mabee at the harpsichord), the half concluded-- blossomed is probably the better word--with Michael Tippett’s Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli, which uses material from the Corelli and Bach pieces.

Tippett’s 1953 Fantasia, written for a solo group of two violins and cello, and double string orchestra, seems a cross between Vaughan Williams’ “Tallis” Fantasia and Britten’s “Purcell” Variations. Subjecting his Corellian themes to a series of lacey modernistic variations, entering them into a musical prism of fragmentation and refraction, Tippett brings them into focus movingly in summation, the Bach fugue hovering into daylight, then Corelli’s slow-moving theme rolling majestically in the bass.

Brown, orchestra and solo partners--Rene Mandel, violin, and Douglas Davis, cello--gave it a polished, intense performance.

Handel’s Concerto Grosso Opus 6, No. 5, and Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 2 made up the first half, in tautly phrased but subtle and vibrant readings. Flutist David Shostac was the, by turns, weighty and dashing soloist in the Bach suite.