By Daniel Buckwalter
The stylish diversity of Baroque music, with its sometime energetic spirit mixed often with melodic drama, made a Mother’s Day splash with period instruments at The Shedd on May 8.
That’s when Baroque violinist Alice Blankenship led the nine-person microphilharmonic chamber ensemble through the intricacies of 10 pieces from eight Italian composers in a period that spans more than a century — from Giovanni Paolo Cima in the early years to the more well-known Antonio Vivaldi — at the Jaqua Concert Hall in front of an appreciative audience.
The smartly done concert was the perfect antidote to another gray and blustery spring day in Eugene (it helps if you tell yourself that we need this rain for the summer months), and it is performed again tonight at The Shedd.
And if you’re able to attend the second performance on May 9, you will hear an opening piece from Vivaldi, Concerto in A minor for two violins (1711), which has all the spritely, rapid-fire moments as well as the softer, melodic tapestry that the iron horse of Baroque is known for.
It was wonderfully done Sunday by microphilharmonic, especially with Blankenship and fellow violinist Rachael Hurwitz as the leads.
Roughly a century before Vivaldi’s legend was set in stone, there were Italian composers who were establishing Baroque as an art form. If they didn’t leave the legacy of Vivaldi, they still composed first-rate music.
Cima was one of them. His seldom-heard piece, Sonata 2 Violone (1610), is an elegant dance between a violinist (Blankenship) and a cellist (Marc Vanscheeuwijck) with the soft backdrop of the period organ (Julia Brown), and it is beautiful. The piece should be heard more often.
There were works by Salamone Rossi and Giovanni Battista Fontana, as well as by Biagio Marini, Marco Uccellini and Evaristo Felice dall’Abco.
My favorite piece is the only solo piece in the nearly 90-minute program — Ricercar 7 per violoncello (1689) — performed admirably by Vanscheeuwijck with the period instrument, the violoncello.
Also, Hurwitz was splendid on violin with the two Rossi pieces: Sonata in Dialogo Detta la Viena (1623) and Sonata duodecima sopra la Bergamasca (1623).
I would urge you to attend microphilharmonic’s annual salute to Baroque music on Monday, May 9, at 7:30 p.m. in the Jaqua Concert Hall at The Shedd, and then follow the group’s ever-changing roster to this season’s final concerts, on June 5 and 6, with a concert devoted to Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms.
Tickets for the microphilharmonic concert are $12 to $38, available through the ticket office at 868 High St., Eugene, by telephone at 541-434-7000, or online at theshedd.org.
