Period Style, Stretching Across Three Centuries

Word has been beamed from London for the past two years about the wonders of the New Queen’s Hall Orchestra, a period-instrument orchestra. But the period in question is not the Baroque, Classical or mid-Romantic era, the latter representing the furthest the antiquarians are likely to venture.

No, these people attempt to resurrect the sound and spirit of the early decades of our own century, when a like-named, similarly constitituted ensemble was playing Elgar and Vaughan Williams (as well as “the classics”) on gut strings, narrow-bore brass, reedy French bassoons and dulcet wooden flutes: the instruments of the time, although the flutes had been replaced by metal elsewhere.

The sounds produced by these skilled players are indeed lovely in their debut recording, a Vaughan Williams program (Argo 440 116).

The full ensemble is heard in “Norfolk Rhapsody” and “In the Fen Country,” while strings dominate the “Tallis” Fantasia, “The Lark Ascending,” the Variants on “Dives and Lazarus” and the “Greensleeves” Fantasia.

But, as The Duke said, “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.” And swing the orchestra most emphatically does not under Barry Wordsworth’s limp baton. It is less a matter of slow tempos (although some are decidedly that) than of lack of rhythmic incisiveness.

On the other hand, period pianism has rarely had it so good as in the Chopin recital presented by the inventive Alexei Lubimov, employing an 1837 Erard piano of the kind Chopin himself might have used for his four Ballades, “Barcarolle,” Berceuse and Opus 49 Fantasy--the program performed here with such stunning expressivity.

The instrument itself has plenty of ping and an unexpectedly powerful bass. Above all, however, it has a rich--not so much strong as multi-colored--mid-range. And it has, on this occasion, an artist capable at once of bringing out the piano’s capabilities while refreshing some of Chopin’s most familiar creations (Erato 45990).

Among the various recent period recordings of Baroque music, three stand out.

By creating a different continuo background for virtually each of the six works presented, Vivaldi’s normally ho-hum Cello Sonatas can take on unexpected luster.

The variety may be there in the music, but is effectively hidden in performances less searching and accomplished than those presented by the Dutch cellist Pieter Wispelwey and a continuo group comprising lutes, guitar, harpsichord, organ and a second cello.

The slow movements in particular abound in otherworldly harmonies, but Wispelwey and friends don’t slight the rhythmic drive of the Vivaldian fast sections, which here find the composer less insistent on the rushing-scales-and-striding-arpeggios formula that can make his concertos monotonous--an altogether distinguished release of music that has not received its interpretive due in the past (Channel Classics 6294).

The music by Henry Purcell played at the funeral of the short-lived Queen Mary in Westminster Abbey in 1695, as well as a number of his works, mostly vocal, written earlier but suitable to the occasion, are presented with splendid pomp and gravity by the Winchester Cathedral Choir and instrumentalists--brass, strings and drums--expertly directed by organist David Hill.

Included among the 17 numbers are such gloriously agonized chromatic laments as “Man that is born of woman,” “In the midst of life,” “My beloved spake” and “Rejoice in the Lord alway.”

There is plenty of recorded competition for that ultimate example of J.S. Bach’s polyphonic genius, his “Musical Offering.” But there’s always room for an interpretation as vigorous and imaginative as that newly recorded by Carlo Chiarappa and his Ravenna-based Accademia Bizantina, instrumentalists as comfortable playing Berio on modern instruments as Bach on period reproductions.

This is, happily, one of those groups that permits itself as much ornamentation and rhythmic freedom as the music can accommodate, a practice which bears particularly rich fruit in a lushly emotional traversal of the great Trio Sonata by flutist Eva Katharina Dumig, violinist Chiarappa and harpsichordist Ottavio Dantone (Denon 75861).