Bach and Vivaldi: Jaime Laredo, cond./violin,
soloists, Seattle Symphony, Benaroya Hall,
Seattle,
13.1.2007 (BJ)
Divided
equally between Bach and Vivaldi, Jaime Laredo’s program of concertos in the
Seattle Symphony’s “Basically Baroque” series offered sensitive and often
exciting music-making, productive of much pleasure for the unbiased listener.
Granted, it was not really an evening calculated to appeal to purists, who may
well have been put off by the liberality with which vibrato was allowed to color
the string playing.
Even I, though not a fully-paid-up member of the “Historically Informed
Performance Practice” lobby, am by now well enough used to hearing the wind
parts in the Fourth “Brandenburg” Concerto played on recorders to have found the
sonority of modern transverse flutes a bit strange, finely though the
orchestra’s Zartouhi Dombourian-Eby and Judy Kriewall played them. I thought,
too, that in an ensemble of 23 stringed instruments two basses was one too many,
lending a somewhat leaden tone to the foundation of the orchestral tone. But,
for the rest, Jaime Laredo is so perceptive, skillful, and indeed charming a
musician that I was willing to take the occasional dynamic surge and the
generally saturated orchestral textures for what they were worth, which was a
great deal in terms of eloquence and dramatic force.
In any case, there was much about the performances of all the six works on the
program that did indeed show stylistic awareness, especially in regard to tempo
and pulse. Speeds were for the most part lively without descending into
caricature–though a few moments of decidedly approximate ensemble (and a few
smudged notes) were the price of the conductor-soloist’s willingness to take
risks in the interest of entirely appropriate vitality. The first movement of
the “Brandenburg”
Concerto No. 3 skipped along in an nimbly articulated alla breve measure,
instead of the plodding four-beats-to-the-bar too often inflicted on it, and
Bach’s occasional rhetorical touches were given just the right degree of
emphasis. Laredo’s solo playing was fluent and at times cliff-hangingly
brilliant, particularly in Vivaldi’s Tempesta di mare concerto, in the
Fourth “Brandenburg,”
and in Bach’s Concerto for Violin and Oboe, in which Ben Hausmann was a
sympathetic if at times over-modest partner.
Two other Vivaldi concertos added first one additional violinist and then two to
the solo line-up. Acting concertmaster Maria Larionoff matched Laredo thrust for
thrust in the powerful A-minor Concerto, RV 522, from L’estro armonico,
and in the delightful middle movement of the concluding work, the F-major
Concerto for three violins, RV 551, she threw off a splendid sprinkle of
pizzicatos alongside the contrasting lines silkily played by Laredo and
assistant principal second violin Michael Miropolsky. It was a highly
entertaining culmination to an evening of civilized music performed with
urbanity and grace.
Bernard
Jacobson
