MUSIC REVIEWS : Baroque Offerings From Winthrop Fleet

The Winthrop Fleet, not a gathering of boats but of period instruments, concluded its second season over the weekend in concerts featuring an intelligent and satisfying mixture of Baroque novelty and Bach.

The locally based ensemble offered stylistically informed and energetic performances in its concert Saturday night at St. James’ Episcopal Church (scheduled for repeat Sunday in Pasadena), some roughness around the edges notwithstanding. With solid personnel in place and an adventuresome, though small, third season planned, the group looks promising.

It showed particular vigor, polish and sensitivity in Michel Corrette’s Concerto Comique No. 25, “Les Sauvages et La Furstemberg,” a little gem of a piece, not comic but, rather, merely intended for performance between acts at the Comedie Francaise and Opera Comique. First violinist Carla Moore headed a wonderfully rugged and aptly quaint reading, nicely capturing the robust character of the first movement--based on an air written for the 1725 “exhibition” of two dancing and singing Native Americans--as well as the dainty and perfectly silly Andante, music for rosy-cheeked cherubs.

Veteran Baroque violinist Stanley Ritchie joined the Fleet as soloist (and leader) in Bach’s Violin Concerto in E and the “Brandenburg” Concerto No. 5, giving neat, tautly sculpted yet finessed readings.

In the “Brandenburg” he was abetted by an elegant Kim Pineda on flute and a spirited Elisabeth Wright on harpsichord. The accompaniments suffered somewhat from the diffuse acoustics as well as from various untidinesses, but at their best proved incisive and fluid.

Georg Muffat’s Concerto Grosso in E, “Indissolubilis Amicitia,” a pleasant, florid, if ultimately innocuous, dance suite, opened the concert in unsettled fashion.