A Lesson in Baroque Violin

To say that Andrew Manze is a delightful violinist should, you would think, be qualification enough. Certainly anyone who enjoys witnessing expert violin playing would have been royally entertained at Manze’s recital Thursday night in what the Southwestern University School of Law somewhat optimistically calls its Louis XVI Room.

The concert was one in the series Chamber Music in Historic Sites, organized by the Da Camera Society of Mount St. Mary’s College, and it was of historic music well over 100 years older than this mirrored chamber in the Deco building that once housed the Bullocks Wilshire department store.

But Manze is not just a violinist; he is a specialist in the Baroque period, a master of that antique style of playing we now call period practice. And it is because of this specialty, not despite it, that he is the beguiling performer he is. However appealing on their own are such traits as arresting virtuosity, wonderfully warm musicality and an appealing sense of humor, those attributes don’t appear to be something Manze brings to early music from the outside; they seem to come directly from the style itself.

The music on this occasion included well-known pieces by Bach and Handel, a couple of sonatas by Corelli and some rarities. Harpsichordist Richard Egarr, with whom he regularly collaborates, was Manze’s partner, and the give-and-take between them furthered the feeling of sheer pleasure these players take in making music. Egarr’s role varied from improvising over a base line in two of Corelli’s Opus 5 sonatas to being more than an equal in Bach’s Sonata in C Minor, where each hand of the harpsichordist has an individual part to play. On his own, Egarr was a vivid soloist in Handel’s Suite in E (“The Harmonious Blacksmith”).

Still, Manze was the center of attention: Even in a relatively intimate space a good-sized harpsichord does not carry nearly as well as a violin. And then there is Manze’s curious flair. He has a modest, cheerful, friendly and slightly academic manner. He banters easily and amusingly with the audience. But none of that quite prepares the listener for the huge range of expression Manze finds in Baroque violin music. In Italian music he reveals a great enthusiasm for brilliant color and for almost romantic melodic expression. His theatricality ideally served the operatic style of Handel’s Sonata in A, Opus 1, No. 3. Yet in Bach’s C-Minor Sonata he found a downright religious depth in two profound slow movements.

There is also an impish mischievousness in Manze, especially in fast movements, where he takes an evident joy in showing off his virtuosity. He is a rhythmically exciting player and seems to love a good chase. And most appealing of all is his penchant for the eccentric.

All of the above characteristics appeared in his slightly off-the-wall reconstruction for solo violin of Bach’s famous Toccata and Fugue in D-Minor for organ. Manze introduced the performance by stating that there were some suspicious features in the piece suggesting it might originally have been intended for violin.

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But to hear this thunderous organ music turned into violin filigree had a puckish audacity that approached P.D.Q. Bach. Convincing it wasn’t, and yet the irresistibly extravagant performance certainly presented overly familiar music in new light.

But put Manze and Egarr at the service of a true eccentric, such as the little-known Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi whose music, at least as Manze plays it, sounds as if a klezmer violinist somehow got grafted onto a flamboyant Italian Baroque musician who flourished around 1660. Last year Manze released a recording of Pandolfi that is probably the best early music party disc since Cathy Berberian recorded Baroque arrangements of Beatles songs more than 30 years ago. A Pandolfi encore Thursday left one’s jaw hanging wide.

Manze’s latest CD is of Handel sonatas, and it is slowly working its way up the Billboard charts. May it rise to the top.