‘Dettingen’ Te Deum Concludes Corona del Mar Festival : The daunting, final program of the annual baroque celebration suffered from some sloppy performances and bad acoustics.

The 11th annual Corona del Mar Baroque Music Festival concluded with music director Burton Karson taking on a daunting program that ultimately proved too much to handle--or was it just too much Handel?--for his rough-and-ready musicians.

The concert, Sunday at St. Michael and All Angels Church, featured a large and ambitious helping of the master, some infrequently ventured works in timely performance.

The Persian Gulf War served as subtext to the event: Handel’s “Dettingen” Te Deum, the main item Sunday, was written to celebrate the 1743 English victory, led by George II, over the French; the composer’s “Anthem on the Peace,” the concluding work, commemorated the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. The inclusion of the latter, Karson wrote in the program, “was inspired by the cessation of America’s recent military conflict.”

Unfortunately, the performance of the Te Deum was just plain sloppy, with ragged ensemble and intonation being prime faults. St. Michael’s boxy acoustic didn’t help matters, rendering the sound harsh and ringing at louder volumes, bland and jumbled at all levels. Beginnings of movements and tempo changes seemed particularly trying, with Karson having to stop and restart one section.

The vocal quartet--soprano Jennifer Smith, countertenors Brian Asawa and Dana Marsh, baritone Earle Patriarco--sang solidly enough, though sometimes without much personality; the exception was Smith’s pointed and sweetly flowing solos. The smallish choir, i.e., the Festival Singers, offered consistently strident tone, and, in more exposed passages, a disconcerting lack of blend.

The program ended more happily, with a generally polished account of the Anthem, the choir coming to life especially in the finale (adapted from “Messiah”), tracing its quick lines with precision, asserting its big moments with focused power.

In between came another haggard reading, this of the Concerto Grosso, Opus 3, No. 2, the instrumentalists again revealing problems with tuning and ensemble. Such is the plight of many a festival orchestra.