MUSIC REVIEW : A Dearth of Subtlety at SummerFest

LA JOLLA —  Despite near-perfect beach weather Sunday afternoon, SummerFest’s all-Baroque concert filled Sherwood Auditorium to capacity. The indoor musical diversions devised by festival artistic director Heiichiro Ohyama pleased the crowd, but the music-making set no records for polish or profundity.

At fault were conductor Ohyama’s larger-than-life interpretations of concertos by Vivaldi, Telemann and C.P.E. Bach. Instead of encouraging a buoyant, supple sound from his ensemble of 14 young string players, he relentlessly urged them to produce as much volume as possible, with vigorous down-bows and inappropriate grand crescendos at every final cadence.

The few times Ohyama’s instrumentalists played softly, their sonority immediately improved, but otherwise the conductor’s vigor elicited a coarse, poorly focused timbre. It’s not simply that this “sewing machine” approach to Baroque interpretation is passe--it’s too monotonous to endure.

In Telemann’s E Minor Oboe Concerto, guest soloist Allan Vogel chose the better path, demonstrating that Baroque style is captured by elegant phrasing and artfully contrasted articulations. With his customary finesse, Vogel kept his solo line alive by avoiding the predictable and infusing even the smallest motivic groupings with character. Sadly, the accompanying strings regularly threatened to overpower him with their artificially pumped-up playing. To his credit, Vogel held his ground.

Violinist Julie Rosenfeld and flutist Marina Piccinini brought equally deft attention to their solo roles in J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, which was performed stylishly without conductor.

The repartee between Rosenfeld and Piccinini had a playful quality, a sophisticated animation that, unfortunately, did not extend to the concerto’s other soloist, harpsichordist Mark Kroll. He plowed through the concerto’s thicket of notes without much sense of direction, and the celebrated first-movement cadenza sounded more like an etude than a spirited flourish. Kroll’s solo in the concert-opening D Minor Harpsichord Concerto by C.P.E. Bach displayed an equally generic quality.

Four violinists from SummerFest’s “rising stars” program soloed in Vivaldi’s B Minor Concerto for Four Violins, Op. 3, No. 10. Ayako Yoshida, Sheryl Staples, Jennifer Frautschi and Laura Frautschi showed their angular prowess and brilliant timbres in the lively work, which was made even more fevered by Ohyama’s conducting.