Music Reviews : Baroque Fest Opens on Slow Note but in Period Precision

Music director Burton Karson invigorated the Coronadel Mar Baroque Music Festival last June by importing a Los Angeles-based period-instrument ensemble--Michael Eagan’s Musica Angelica--as the core of his orchestra. Karson repeated this wise choice at the concert Sunday at St. Michael and All Angels Church, which opened the 15th season of these programs.

The musicians played stylishly in ensemble and also provided most of the proficient soloists in the six-concerto program.

Unfortunately, a tendency toward cautious, deliberate tempos by Karson--perhaps to accommodate the soloists--diminished the energy, esprit and joy that make this repertory so invigorating.

A result was that Telemann’s pastoral, ungainly Concerto in A for Flute, Violin, Violoncello and Strings astonishingly sounded more interesting and spirited than works by Bach, Vivaldi and Handel. The soloists were flutist Stephen Schultz, Elizabeth Blumenstock, who elsewhere served as concertmaster, and cellist Mark Chatfield, whose continuo work was exemplary. Other concertos proved vehicles for oboist Gonzalo Ruiz (Vivaldi’s Concerto in D minor), organist Craig Phillips (Handel’s Concerto in F, Opus 4, No. 4) and harpsichordist Yuko Tanaka (Bach’s Concerto in A, BWV 1055).

Two novelties were on the program. Eagan’s Concerto for Lute and Strings, commissioned by the festival, received its first performance with the composer as soloist. A seven-minute work in two movements, the concerto explores moody romanticism, a bit anachronistic under these auspices, before turning to perkier neo-baroque rhythms and harmonies.

The second, Walter F. Hindermann’s pastiche Bach Concerto in G, concluded the program. The work consists of movements from different church cantatas (BWV 99, 125 and 115, respectively) and re-scored for flute, oboe d’amore, violin and strings.

On the heels of Bach’s own harpsichord concerto, Hindermann’s effort proved only that you can’t just arrange three movements in a fast-slow-fast pattern and come up with an integrated work. There’s a logic and a set of relationships, difficult as they are to articulate, that tie movements to make a single whole.

The program opened with Henry Purcell’s grim “Curtain Tune,” the only piece by the composer whose 300th memorial will be honored more in later programs.

* The Corona del Mar Baroque Festival will continue with works by Purcell on Wednesday at 8 p.m. at Sherman Library and Gardens, 2645 E. Coast Highway; solo and chamber music Friday at 8 p.m. at the library, and a choral finale Sunday at 4 p.m. at St. Michael, 3233 Pacific View Drive. Tickets: $30 per concert at Sherman Library; $25 at St. Michael. (714) 760-7887.