Philharmonia Tries Out Some Obscurities

Seen from this distance, the baroque period looks harmonious and unified, thoughdominated, rightly, by a handful of composers such as Bach and Handel.

But the period had as many mavericks and journeymen as any other, as shown when Nicholas McGegan led his Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in a six-part program Tuesday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

With the usual suspects (Purcell and Handel), McGegan rounded up Thomas Arne (“Rule, Britannia”), Pietro Locatelli (best known from cutout bins and music history courses), and Capel Bond and Charles Avison (who and who?).

Arne’s hearty Harpsichord Concerto No. 1, with the fluent virtuoso solo playing of Charles Sherman, turned out to be the unearthed musical treasure of the program.

But Locatelli’s Concerto Grosso No. 2, Opus 7, took the prize for sheer experimental weirdness. In one of his genial and impish remarks from the stage, McGegan quite properly described it as “a very strange piece.”

It unfolds by fits and starts, and if there’s a unifying idea besides repeating itself, it flew by this listener. The harmonies were not adventuresome, but the composer kept experimenting with form and dynamic to make a challenging and bracing puzzle.

By comparison, Bond’s modest Concerto Grosso No. 2 is simplicity itself--competent and forgettable.

For his Concerto Grosso No. 12, Avison interleaved movements of a Scarlatti Harpsichord Sonata he arranged among movements of his own. (“The slow bits are by Avison,” said McGegan. “The fast bits are by Scarlatti.”) The fast bits were better.

McGegan and his San Francisco-based period instrument group made the best possible case for all of the works. Anyone who wants a crash course in what phrasing means in music, for instance, could do no better than to watch McGegan conduct. He sculpts, connects, modifies and energizes notes into statements that advance meaning.

Anyone who wants to understand how physicalized rhythms propel notes into such phrases could do no better than to watch the wonderful Philharmonia Baroque musicians as they bob, weave and sway in response to the conductor.

The program, which opened with the Suite from Purcell’s “The Married Beau” and closed with Handel’s complex Concerto Grosso No. 4, Opus 6, was sponsored by the Philharmonic Society of Orange County.