Swept up by Bicket’s baton
British early music specialist Harry Bicket took the helm of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra at Royce Hall, UCLA, on Sunday, leading muscular, invigorating performances of early Mendelssohn, a familiar concerto by C.P.E. Bach and Haydn’s final symphony.
No stranger to Los Angeles, Bicket won hearts and minds conducting Monteverdi’s “The Coronation of Poppea” and Handel’s “Giulio Cesare” for Los Angeles Opera in 2006 and 2001, respectively. He led LACO in 2005 and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in 2004.
Bicket evinced a direct, no-nonsense approach to the selections on Sunday’s program. He favored brisk tempos, dynamic contrasts and minimal vibrato, which gave a silvery coolness to the music but often at the expense of warmth or charm.
Mendelssohn’s early string symphonies -- designated as sinfonias -- are precocious, accomplished works. The Sinfonia No. 9 in C, written when the composer was 14, has a Haydn-esque vitality and is full of experiments in counterpoint and texture, the kinds of things he would later tame and integrate in more perfected classical forms.
Yet there was a real pleasure in hearing him juxtapose contrasting, pared-down quartets in the slow movement or run chases and echoing hurrahs between groups in the third. The orchestra played with buoyancy, and Bicket seemed to be beaming.
LACO principal cellist Douglas Davis was the soloist in C.P.E. Bach’s familiar Cello Concerto in A, a bridge work between Baroque and Classical styles.
Davis was fleet and dexterous and was most songful in the slow middle movement, in which the other strings play with their mutes on.
Bicket led from the harpsichord, which unfortunately was seldom audible.
After the performance, the cellist, who has been with the orchestra for more than 30 years, announced that the current season is his last. As a non-lugubrious encore, he played his own upbeat version of “The Swan” from Saint-Saens’ “Carnival of the Animals,” ending in an ethereal pianissimo.
After intermission, LACO executive director Andrea Laguni, departing associate executive director Ruth L. Eliel and music director Jeffrey Kahane came onstage to pay tribute to Davis.
The concert ended with a rousing performance of Haydn’s “London” Symphony with the orchestra at peak form and Bicket at his most exuberant.
--
The biggest entertainment stories
Get our big stories about Hollywood, film, television, music, arts, culture and more right in your inbox as soon as they publish.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
