MUSIC REVIEWS : Compelling Concert by Baroque

One has to wonder where our area’s musical heads and ears are if the spiffy little Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra, our one artistically viable period band, can fill only half of Santa Monica’s inviting, accessible--it is located a block from the Third Street Promenade--300-seat (eyeball estimate) First Presbyterian Church.

Not only was this the case on Friday evening, but the program included fully half of Vivaldi’s most inventive, soul-stirring collection of concertos, his “L’Estro Armonico,” Opus 3, delivered with authority and stylishness by the four solo violinists--LABO leader Gregory Maldonado, Jolianne von Einem, Janet Worsley, Michael Sand--and a strong supporting cast.

Where were the crowds that inevitably turn up for the composer’s “Four Seasons,” whatever the auspices? Are they not music lovers but merely trendies, housebound except to check out the occasional classical chart-topper?

The efforts of the Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra deserve not only verbal encouragement but a large audience. And rarely has one been more merited than by Friday’s compelling program, marked by characterful contributions from the featured players (Einem’s solo in the A-minor Concerto was a marvel of rhythmic vitality) and from Edward Murray, who presided imaginatively over the keyboard continuo.

Perhaps the ensemble would draw the numbers it deserves if it changed its name to Camerata delle Stagioni, or Musica Antiqua Kaliforniensis. And wore shades and false beards while playing.