MUSIC REVIEW : Spirited Program Ends Summer Baroque Series

The Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra’s inaugural summer chamber music series should be counted a success, at least in terms of art and audience. It closed Sunday afternoon at the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica with a spirited program of High Baroque works for mixed string and woodwind ensembles.

Brightest and best--and certainly most in tune--of the offerings was Francois Couperin’s Ordre “La Piemontoise” from “Les Nations.” LABO Music Director Gregory Maldonado tried some experiments with the scoring of the treble parts, with refreshing, stylistically viable results.

Maldonado and Jolianne von Einem supplied the clear, sweet violins, in fluent partnership with the blithe, clean wooden flutes of Kim Pineda and the characterful oboe of Michael DuPree. Cellist Adrienne Grossman and harpsichordist Edward Murray provided elegant and pertinent continuo work.

Phrasing contrasted sharply throughout the afternoon, with the winds generally taking a smoother, less detached approach than did the strings. Though blurring some concerted passages, the effect was largely one of complementary variety.

Independence also extended to intonation, and the disagreement about the size of certain intervals was pronounced enough to have a melodic as well as harmonic impact.

The players seemed to take the disparity simply as a matter of personal and instrumental idiosyncrasy, however. Ensemble equanimity remained unruffled, and the collective sound proved consistently fresh and appealing.

The first half of the concert held two engaging works by Telemann, and a vivid Concerto in D for recorder, oboe, violin and continuo by Vivaldi, distinguished by Pineda’s lavishly embellished Largo and the composer’s strikingly weird ritornello in the finale.