MUSIC REVIEW : Brandenburg in Baroque Concert

There was no shortage of imagination on display in the Baroque program presented at Ambassador Auditorium on Thursday by Anthony Newman and his period-instrument Brandenburg Collegium.

The standard repertory was represented by J. S. Bach’s B-minor Suite, confidently, virtuosically dispatched by flutist Sandra Miller, while harpsichordist Newman expended no little effort in making the same composer’s dashing Concerto in E, BWV 1053, a strongly personal statement.

With the concerto, however, there were problems. Over-ornamentation of the solo obscured the notated melodic line and, for the first time in this listener’s experience, a harpsichord was too loud , virtually obliterating the violins, rather than the common reverse procedure, in this one-instrument-to-a-part performance.

In three magnificent Purcell songs, including the haunting, ever-welcome “Musick for a While,” soprano Julianne Baird combined flawless, vibrato-free singing with the telling expressive gesture. But in Bach’s “Wedding” Cantata, BWV 202, with Alex Klein sensitively executing the oboe obbligato, Baird’s soft-grained vocalism could also become soporific for lack of audible consonants, while her trick of fading out at phrase-endings approached archness.

It should be mentioned that all three concertos on the agenda, the aforementioned Bach, one for viola d’amore by Vivaldi (virile, occasionally under-pitch playing by David Cerutti) and “Il grosso mogul” by the same composer (with Lisa Rautenberg the vivacious violin soloist), included extensive first- and last-movement solo cadenzas.

Requisite in concertos of a later period, their employment here seemed counterproductive, having the effect of inflating brief, compact pieces well beyond their natural proportions.