Rebel Consort Gives Concert Full of Polish, Enthusiasm

Named for a composer rather than its musical leanings, the period-instrument Rebel Consort explored the vast world of the Baroque trio sonata on a Chamber Music in Historic Sites concert Wednesday.

Like kids in a candy shop, the Rebels--violinists Jorg-Michael Schwartz and Karen Marie Marmer, cellist John Moran and Dongsok Shin on harpsichord and organ--sampled a little of everything, big names and small, and found it all to their liking. In the Hollywood Roosevelt’s Blossom Room, this clear enthusiasm, coupled with equal parts polish, finesse and insight, carried the day.

Even the music of such relative unknowns as David Pohle, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer and Johann Rosenmuller seemed like lost treasures rather than trivialities. Well, perhaps not Schmelzer’s 1665 “Polnische Sackpfeiffen” Sonata that turned out to be both a good-natured Polish joke and a bagpipe joke, here dispatched with the aid of hurdy-gurdy player Curtis Berak.

In sonatas by Handel (Opus 5, No. 4), Corelli and Vivaldi (“La Follia”) and an overture by Leclair, the violinists produced taut and talkative teamwork: Imitative writing became lively one-upmanship. Cellist Moran projected vigorous and expressive bass lines, a powerful engine of forward movement.

The strong direction in their playing, not surprisingly, highlighted Purcell’s Pavane, Z. 750, and his famous “Chacony” in G minor. The Pavane puts its harmonies through hall-of-mirrors distortions, and the players leaned every which way with it. The “Chacony,” written on a five-bar repeated bass line, built to mesmerizing heights, while Shin, on organ, deepened it by adding a lower octave at just the right moment.