Musicians Go for Baroque

Why do musicians play music? “To have people come and listen,” said Mariko Frankl, 60, of Yorba Linda. To that end, she started the Harmonia Baroque Players in 1984. “Originally, I just wanted to play baroque chamber music,” she said. But soon the group was performing at libraries and colleges for little or no admission. “That way we can reach a lot of people who can’t afford expensive concerts. We have people come with children who would not otherwise be exposed.”

The group will perform a variety of sonatas, including works by Telemann, Scarlatti and Benedetto Marcello, at the La Canada Flintridge Library on Wednesday night.

Sometimes at their performances, members of the group also talk about the music and the instruments they play. For example, Frankl said a sonata, especially in baroque music, is a piece written for a solo instrument accompanied by harpsichord and cello. A trio sonata is written for two solo instruments with harpsichord and cello, so it’s played by four people. The program also includes a partita by Johann Sebastian Bach. What’s a partita? “It’s almost like a suite,” said Frankl, adding that a suite is a group of dances.

And yes, the group will bring a harpsichord, an instrument that, like the piano, is as much a piece of furniture as it is an instrument. “We are not bringing a full-sized harpsichord,” Frankl said. She explained that harpsichords come in several sizes, ranging from a small spinet size to about as big as a grand piano. “We’re bringing the small spinet,” she said. “Its legs unscrew, and it fits very nicely in the van. The whole thing only weighs 40 pounds.” The group’s harpsichordist, Barbara King, also has a full-sized instrument that the group takes to larger concert halls that can accommodate the larger sound.

Frankl, who plays recorder for the group, will focus on that instrument in her comments Wednesday. She said the recorder, called “sweet flute” in German and Italian, was used in England in the early 18th Century to train songbirds to sing specific melodies, a process called recording, from whence comes the name.

The two other group members performing Wednesday are Wei Neng Yang on violin and Karen Garrity on cello. The La Canada Flintridge Library is at 4545 Oakwood Ave. The concert starts at 7 p.m. Admission is free.