MUSIC REVIEW : Tafelmusik Wins Some, Loses Some

Even a fine early-music ensemble such as Tafelmusik cannot turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.

Great Baroque composers such as Bach and Handel do indeed gain something through historically informed performances; they also lose something. But they do not become great through such playing. Others, such as Telemann, never transcend their period and remain of antiquarian interest.

That was demonstrated anew during a five-part Baroque program Tafelmusik played Thursday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

Led by violinist and music director Jeanne Lamon, the Canadian orchestra, ranging in size from 16 to 22 musicians, provided transparent and balanced textures.

Their ensemble work was precise and sensitive, not only at obvious points, but also in carefully judged, varying dynamics and the use of rubato in phrasing. Even so, the thin, silvery, irritating non-vibrato string tone remains an acquired taste.

More significantly, by abandoning affective, personal interpretation, they made genuinely fine music sound dull.

Vivaldi suffered the greatest in this regard in a sluggish, cautious performance of his Concerto for Two Horns, although soloists Ab Koster and Derek Conrod proved masterly in coaxing music from the recalcitrant natural instruments.

Domenico Scarlatti, as filtered through an 18th-Century orchestration by Charles Avison, came a close second. Avison, a British organist, concert promoter and composer, arranged various Scarlatti keyboard sonatas for orchestra. In the process, he leeched the life out of Scarlatti’s quirky, irresistible inventiveness and camouflaged his unique voice. (Tommasini was much more effective in capturing that voice in his brilliant orchestration for Massine’s 1917 ballet, “The Good Humored Ladies.” In that work, Tommasini incorporated the same Vivace that closed Avison’s Concerto No. 2.)

Advocates of Telemann have been trying vainly to persuade others of his greatness. But his Overture in G minor for Three Oboes, Bassoon and Strings remained a dreary affair--Purcell, too, in a Suite from his “The Prophetess, or The History of Dioclesian.”

Good old Bach and Handel saved the day with a complexity, vigor and variety of invention that transcend period specificity: Bach in the First “Brandenburg” Concerto; Handel in an Allegro from the “Water Music” given as the encore.

The concert was part of the series sponsored by the Laguna Chamber Music Society and the Orange County Philharmonic Society. The organizations dedicated the program to the memory of Robert E. Rawlings, a staunch supporter of Orange County arts who died Sept. 26 at the age of 81.