Allegro does it old-school

Allegro ended its main stage season Friday celebrating a batch of this month’s baroque birthdays. The string of birthday boys included Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Philipp Telemann and two Bachs (Johann Sebastian and Carl Phillip Emanuel), plus George Frideric Handel, an interloper whose birthday was in February.

Allegro, in its 22nd season here, has given Spokane some interesting and often beautiful lessons in the style of 17th- and 18th-century music. And Friday’s birthday bash provided more of both – the interesting and the beautiful.

Allegro founders and co-directors Beverly Biggs and David Dutton introduced Friday’s concert by playing recorded and live examples of do’s and don’ts of “historically informed performances.” Select the correct instrument, and learn from early instruction manuals how performers of the time played differently from today’s performers. Above all, don’t play or sing in a boring fashion.

Excellent advice.

The concert proper got under way with a cheery movement from a Cantata No. 26 by Telemann performed with an infectious heartiness by Dutton and Biggs, along with violinist Rachel Dorfman and viola da gambist Stephen Swanson. The little piece danced just as baroque allegros often do.

Biggs explored the more meditative side, though still dance-like, in the Allemande from J.S. Bach’s French Suite No. 3. The performers returned to Telemann together with tenor Steve Goodenberger in two arias from Cantata No. 31, “Zischet nur” and “Der Himmel ist nicht ohne Sterne.” The performance seemed too earnestly churchy for arias whose texts talk about “hissing, fiery tongues” in the first and “the comfort of the starry heavens” in the second. The power of drama, even religious drama, was never far from the mind of baroque composers.

Some of the most elegant and moving playing of the evening came in Swanson and Biggs’ performance of the opening movements of J.S. Bach’s Sonata in D major for viola da gamba and harpsichord. Swanson, whom we hear most often as a bass player in the Spokane Symphony, handled his silvery-toned, five-string instrument very elegantly. It would have been a pleasure to hear the remaining two movements of this sonata.

Dutton, Dorfman and Swanson performed one of the most unusual of Vivaldi’s 600 concertos – it was a work for only three instruments without orchestra or keyboard. The tempos were lively, sometimes breathless, but the players seemed to enjoy their speedy dialogue.

Dutton was definitely the star of C.P.E. Bach’s virtuosic Oboe Sonata in G minor. Its style included some strange harmonies and startling rhythmic effects. It was a reminder that there was an intermediate style between the baroque and classical periods call “Sturm und Drang” (Storm and Stress).

The evening ended with five sections from Handel’s “In the Lord put I my Trust,” one of the 11 anthems he composed for the Duke of Chandos. The trio of singers included Goodenberger, soprano Christie Jones and baritone Randel Wagner, accompanied by Dorfman, Dutton, Swanson and Biggs. As in the Telemann cantata earlier in the evening, I found the performance blandly uncharacterized, and the pitch of the three singers drifting uncomfortably.

Allegro has given Spokane a good education in baroque style. Sometimes, though, the poise and vitality that might come from sufficient rehearsal are missing.