Allegro caps year with birthday bash

Spokane’s “baroque and beyond” classical music series, Allegro, will end its 2006-07 season on Friday at First Presbyterian Church celebrating a burst of baroque birthdays.

Allegro’s founders and music directors, harpsichordist Beverly Biggs and oboist David Dutton, will lead a program of works by Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Philipp Telemann, George Frideric Handel, and J.S. and C.P.E. Bach.

“March was a pretty good month for the birth of musicians,” Dutton says. “But we do have one intruder from February; Handel was born Feb. 23.”

Even so, he says, “there were connections among all these guys. Since we spent more than a year celebrating the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, it was only fair that we celebrated some of these earlier composers.”

As a student, J.S. Bach had studied and copied works by Vivaldi, the most frequently published composer of his time.

Bach knew Telemann from the time they were young men and he was a friend of Handel’s. Telemann also stood as godfather to C.P.E. Bach, the older Bach’s second son.

Both J.S. Bach and Telemann admired Handel’s music, and Bach on two occasions barely missed meeting Handel.

“We are starting with Vivaldi’s Concerto in G minor for Oboe, Violin and Viola da Gamba,” Dutton says. “It’s unique in that it does not have a figured bass part, so the keyboard is not planned as part of the ensemble as it is in other Vivaldi concertos.”

Along with Dutton, the piece will feature violinist Rachel Dorfman and viola da gambist Steven Swanson.

Telemann will be represented by his cantata “Zischet nur,” sung by tenor Steve Goodenberger.

“Telemann was probably the most prolific composer of all time, having produced 12,000 surviving works,” Dutton says. “Who knows how many might have been lost?”

The “Zischet nur” comes from a series of cantatas for the entire liturgical year, “Der Harmonische Gottesdienst.” They were composed during Telemann’s long tenure as city music director in Hamburg, a job he refused to leave when invited return to his native Leipzig. That gave J.S. Bach the chance to become Leipzig’s music director.

Telemann’s friend Handel was briefly employed by the James Brydges, the Duke of Chandos. Handel’s biographer, Paul Henry Lang, characterized Brydges as “probably the inventor of of the art of modern war-profiteering. He embezzled on a royal scale as paymaster-general of Queen Anne’s army, and he got away with it.”

But Brydges also was ostentatiously religious. As Brydges’ composer-in-residence, Handel composed a series of 11 anthems for a small group of voices and instruments.

Goodenberger, soprano Christie Jones and baritone Randel Wagner will join the Allegro instrumentalists to perform the second of the Chandos Anthems, “In the Lord I Put My Trust.”

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Oboe Sonata in G minor will be played by Dutton, Biggs and Swanson. Biggs will perform the “Allemand” from Johann Sebastian Bach’s French Suite in D major, and along with Swanson will play the elder Bach’s Sonata in D major for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord.

Dutton will discuss the music on Friday’s program in a pre-concert talk beginning at 7:15 p.m.