Orchestra of 18th Century Aims to Surprise

Some conductors aim for glory. Others collide with it.

Frans Bruggen, who for years was a full-time recorder virtuoso and now conducts his internationally mixed, 8-year-old Orchestra of the 18th Century in concerts around the world, didn’t start out to be a podium figure.

“It just happened,” the Dutch musician recalled on the phone from Minnesota, where he was guesting with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra preparatory to beginning his latest North American tour, which starts tonight at 8 in Los Angeles. The 40-member ensemble plays at the Orpheum Theater as part of the Chamber Music in Historic Sites series.

A lifelong interest in original instruments culminated for Bruggen when he founded the Orchestra of the 18th Century in 1981. After steady expansion, he said, the group now makes two tours a season--”This year, 22 concerts in each segment.”

“We cannot do more, because our members, who come from 15 different countries, mostly in Western Europe, have other commitments.”

The specialty of the ensemble is, of course, music of the mid-18th Century. The Mozart program Bruggen will lead at the Orpheum will contain the “Linz” and 40th (G-minor) symphonies and the Sinfonia Concertante for four solo winds and orchestra.

Does Bruggen look forward to further expansion, into other repertories or centuries?

“Oh, no,” he answered. “You could be busy all of your life on the music of this one period. There is no need to look beyond.”

Clarity is the main gain, connoisseurs say, when music of the 18th Century is performed on instruments built between 1750 and 1760--valveless brass, wooden flutes, strings and harpsichord.

“Merely the act of playing this repertory on these instruments produces the sound audiences must have heard at the time,” Bruggen noted.

“Of course, we have studied how it was done then, but the instruments themselves seem to create the style. It is a sound at the same time less massive but more aggressive than modern ears are used to. The instruments operate at a softer volume, yet there is more attack in the sound. There is no plushness. Surprise is the best word to describe how it affects the listener.”