Akademie’s Vivaldi is hard to dismiss

Stravinsky once dismissed Vivaldi’s music as “the same concerto 400 times.” But he might have had second thoughts after hearing the Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin on Friday at Royce Hall, where this period music ensemble, founded in 1982, presented a refreshingly provocative program as part of UCLA Live’s classical series.

The Akademie sandwiched three little-known Baroque composers -- Alessandro Marcello, Johann Gottlieb Graun and Philipp Heinrich Erlebach -- between the major innovators of that era’s concerto repertory: Vivaldi and Bach.

Opening with a lean-textured, economical reading of Vivaldi’s concise Concerto for Strings in G minor, the group delivered flawless ensemble and dynamic shadings that supplied convincing poetry and drama to what is, notwithstanding Stravinsky’s glib verdict, a highly individual piece.

Bach was certainly impressed with the slightly older composer’s developing three-movement language of instrumental contrast. He started absorbing these new ideas into his own musical thinking, transcribing several of Vivaldi’s concertos for keyboard, as well as Marcello’s Concerto in D minor for Oboe, Strings and Continuo. Here the Akademie’s eloquent oboist, Xenia Loffler, expertly navigated its many challenges, including Bach’s own embellishments to Marcello’s central Adagio.

In Graun’s Concerto for Viola da Gamba, watching Jan Freiheit’s fleet fingers on this rather daunting, whispery six-string cello-like instrument became part of the fun. Freiheit made a convincing case for its continued survival, his delicate and muscular playing holding its own against the richer sound from Werner Matzke’s cello. In the concluding Allegro, Freiheit, Matzke and harpsichordist Raphael Alpermann combined in an engaging cadenza-like trio passage that proved another high point.

After intermission, the ensemble conveyed the dance rhythms in Erlebach’s Overture V in F minor with sprightly ease. But in Bach’s Concerto in D minor for keyboard, the sonic limitations of the period instrument demanded more from listeners. The harpsichord is essentially a soft-speaking accompanying voice built for finger speed and meant for more intimate spaces than Royce Hall. Yet Alpermann and the Akademie somehow conjured enough magic to reward the effort of listening harder. No small achievement.

The group’s two encores included a delightful Carsten Gerlitz arrangement (with apologies to Bach) of Bert Kaempfert’s “Strangers in the Night,” featuring the suave stylings of oboist Loffler, and Erlebach’s Overture No. 5 -- Bourree.