SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

York  Christmas  Early Music Festival:  Bach, Galliard, Roman, Rameau: European Union Baroque Orchestra, Lars Ulrik Mortensen (director), Lidewij van derVoort (violin), Christmas York Early Music Festival, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, York University, UK, 10.12.2007 (JL)

FOR KINGS AND NOBLEMEN

JE GALLIARD Suite (from Pan & Syrinx)
JH ROMAN Sinfonia for strings in E minor
J-P RAMEAU Suite (from Zoroastre)
JS BACH Concerto for violin in A minor, BWV1041
JS BACH Orchestral Suite No 1 in C, BWV1066


The Christmas York Early Music Festival is a mini Yuletide, 5-day   version of the justly famous Summer Festival and it concluded this year with a concert given by a truly international ensemble.

The European Union Baroque Orchestra is funded by the European Commission and sponsored by Microsoft Europe. It performs worldwide and makes a speciality of performing in some remote places. With an average age of 24, it is a training ensemble for post graduate musicians selected from all over Europe and acts as a feeder to some of the world's leading Baroque groups. Over 20 years old now, the membership  shifts every year but  it maintains a consistency and tradition, largely thanks to its association with a number of distinguished directors, most of whom have long standing relationships with the orchestra.

This programme balanced engaging works by two lesser known Baroque composers with a substantial dance suite from Rameau and, in the second half, two Bach orchestral masterpieces.  The opening suite by the German composer (with a French name) Galliard rose above the run of the mill baroque collection of dances thanks to a style that the director, Lars Ulrik Mortensen, described in his notes as a cross between Purcell and Telemann  spiced with a pinch of Italian. The players delivered with vigorous attack, irresistible rhythm, well drilled ensemble and perfect intonation. The style was "authentic" in the sense that there was little string vibrato and the woodwind instruments were C18th replicas. There was an approach to phrasing that was highly dynamically contrasted in a way some might consider rather mannered. This, I suspect, derives from Mortensen's direction. Operating from the keyboard (he is a distinguished harpsichordist in his own right) with an ostentatious balletic physicality that I found even more distracting than    Micheal Tilsen Thomas’s conducting style  - and that is saying something - he produced playing that was utterly committed to his way with the music.  A distinctive feature generated from his energetic command was a collective sense of joy exuded by the players, many of whom couldn't stop smiling.

The players stood to play, another authentic touch offset by the less than authentic dress - men in black and women in fetching golden, embroidered silk tops.

The first half concluded with a late work of Rameau, a suite taken from his lavish Paris opera Zoroastre of 1749.  This is a collection of nine numbers, richly contrasted in rhythm and texture ending with a dramatic Ballet figuré of spectacular orchestral effects and startling harmonies. With no keyboard continuo, the director was able to conduct standing and unfettered. A predictable result was that his music was knocked from its stand by a flailing arm, skilfully caught in the hand of the other flailing arm. This added frisson to playing that was already exciting enough.

Of the two well known Bach works of the second half, the A minor Concerto was a revelation to me. Lars Ulrik Mortensen says in his notes, “I am struck by the extent to which Bach’s concertos really are concertos with a solo instrument and not only for one”.  The result was clearly an expression of this assertion in a way I have never heard before. The Dutch leader, or “concertmaster”, Lidewij van derVoort, played the solo part but stood in her usual leader’s position, only facing the audience slightly more head on. So integrated was she that the solo violin sounded simply like another of the violins playing a different part. For example, in the beautiful andante, the accompanying chords from the orchestra were played relatively loud and quite accented so when the solo instrument entered quietly with its long notes there was not that sense of  riding high over  hushed undulations which is how the movement can be heard in recordings of  great violinists of the last century such as Menuhin and Oistrakh. I am not saying this was wrong or even that I did not like it – it just took a bit of getting used to.

Bach’s Orchestral Suite No 1 probably contained some of the most difficult playing of the evening, especially for the woodwind in the penultimate Bourrée.  It was here that I thought I was hearing some of the most exciting Bach orchestral playing I have ever heard. The two oboes and bassoon played extended virtuoso passages that had me on the edge of my seat. The bassoonist, Tomasz Wesolowski from Poland, was particularly outstanding and is, I guess, heading for a distinguished career.

A negative aspect of this splendid Baroque evening was the depressingly low audience numbers - less that 200 I judged. Mind you, with no adequate  “how to get to” instructions on the Hall’s website nor on the Festival’s, there may have been some who gave up the navigational struggle on this dark and cold night. I got there in the nick of time after great perseverance and help from satellites.


John Leeman