Baroque Encounters of the Stylish Kind

With its leading practitioners exhibiting a level of proficiency unimagined even a decade ago, the period-performance movement has become so much a part of concert life--to say nothing of recorded life--that its way has virtually become the only way to be exposed to Baroque music at all.

Difficult as it may be for younger listeners to believe, there was life before violinists chucked their chinrests, before the return of gut strings and before the tuning of instruments below the prevalent modern standard of A=440.

So, it’s a pleasant surprise to hear the old style--with modern instruments, at modern pitch--revived, but shorn of its most anachronistic mannerisms, in a new recorded edition of the dozen solo violin concertos of Vivaldi’s Opus 9 (“La Cetra”) by the dozen strings, plus harpsichord, of I Solisti Italiani (Denon 79475/6, two CDs).

This kind of ensemble is in most respects a throwback to the 1950s and ‘60s, when Italian string orchestras spearheaded the Baroque boom, Vivaldimania and related phenomena.

In those old days, we had to be content with a sort of laid-back, super-suave string playing that today sounds curiously lifeless, if not downright sodden, as will be apparent to anyone with recourse to, say, I Musici’s old Philips recording of Vivaldi. Ornamentation was nonexistent, with the continuo harpsichord regarded as a needless expense: After all, the composer couldn’t even bother to notate its music.

I Solisti Italiani concede nothing to such predecessors as I Musici, Virtuosi di Roma and the Societa Corelli in terms of silken tone. But the Solisti’s elegance is balanced by an incisiveness of phrasing informed by a more contemporary attitude.

Five of the ensemble’s six violinists take solo turns, each playing with considerable rhythmic drive and with the shortened bow-strokes that, if not reflective of the thinking of period specialists, make clear that Vivaldi had not been exposed to Brahms or Puccini.

Still, the Solisti do engage in some quasi-Romantic practices that might make their work anathema to die-hard purists, most notably--and to these ears, enhancingly--their unhectic manner of delivering Vivaldi’s signature rushing scales and striding arpeggios, which can sound comically mechanical when given the superheated, full-speed, tautly inflected treatment regarded as mandatory by certain antiquarians.

As in previous Solisti Italiani releases from Denon, the recording, made in Palladio’s Villa Contarini near Padua, is as rich and colorful as the playing itself.

Similarly energetic, if less focused on solo display and not quite in a league with Vivaldi when it comes to delivering outre harmonies and modulations, are the six “Introduttioni teatrali” of Pietro Antonio Locatelli (1695-1764)--consider them overtures to imaginary operas.

They are presented with flair and intensity by the 13 strings and harpsichord, led by violinist Thomas Hengelbrock, of the hottest new period band on the European circuit, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 77207).

That the Freiburgers can also deliver sensitive readings of more formal material is exhibited here by the players’ gracefully sculpted delivery of three of Locatelli’s Corelli-inspired chamber sonatas.

The more austere voice of Johann Sebastian Bach speaks with splendid authority throughout his eight Sonatas for violin and harpsichord, which are played with unfailing imaginativeness by two of the shining lights of the Bay Area early music scene. Violinist Elizabeth Blumenstock and harpsichordist John Butt, members of Philharmonia Baroque, are equally successful in projecting the composer’s dance rhythms--whether lively or stately--and the dark, fine-spun lyricism of the slow movements.

Highest marks too to Harmonia Mundi’s American production team for a warm, natural-sounding recording that conveys the delicate clarity of the superb instruments employed, a sweet-toned 1687 Strad once the property of Jan Kubelik and a 1981 harpsichord by John Phillips of Berkeley.