Early Music Now Opens Season with Cabaret Baroque

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Photo Via Corina Marti - Facebook

Corina Marti in Early Music Now’s Cabaret Baroque

Early Music Now has a knack for scouting ensembles with diverse instrumentation. In their season opener concert at St. Paul’s, they welcomed Cabaret Baroque, a trio of recorder, lute, and harpsichord. While one might look at that and think “Well, that combination makes sense for Baroque music,” I can’t recall, in my many years of concertgoing, hearing recorder or lute in a concert-length solo or chamber setting. 

Because of the lack of familiarity, I encountered an issue as soon as the music began: the recorder, played by Corina Marti, appeared to be out of tune. Whether this was a period instrument set to a different tuning standard, or just the recorder’s natural tendency to drift, it took some getting used to. Still, Marti played with finesse and nice ornaments in the first big set of the concert. Movements where she switched to a soprano recorder were more successful and in tune with Shalev Ad-El’s harpsichord. My favorite was the Muzette from François Couperin’s Troisiême concert royal, a lilting dance with a flowing recorder melody that evoked a village festival of olden times. Lutist Michał Gondko played some lovely solo works by Denis Gaultier. The tone of his instrument was like a gentle ray of sunshine, but the acoustics at St. Paul’s let him down. This concert would have been better suited to a smaller space, particularly for the delicacy of the lute. 

Scarlatti Sonatas 

The second set switched from French to Italian music, and Shalev Ad-El proceeded to give us harpsichord playing of the highest order. He played a total of four Scarlatti sonatas (K. 213, 6, 144, 145) and I was simply astounded at the fullness of the sound and the overall virtuosic effect. His runs were dazzling, and he employed some stylish time-slowing at key moments and emphasized some of the weirdness in Scarlatti’s work. The second section of K. 144 was deliciously melancholy. I may have detected some effortful humming from Ad-El, but couldn’t confirm. The Scarlatti was interspersed with movements from Corelli’s sonata Op. 5, No. 7, played by Marti on recorder. This music was excellent too, with some standout recorder moments and both players zooming along in fast movements. 

Gondko opened the third set with Denis Gaultier’s lute work Tombeau du Sr Lenclos, dedicated to Henri Lenclos, a great lutist of the past. He preceded the music by reading from a memoir of Lenclos’ daughter, in which she described his wishes that she lived more fully and longer than him. That personal context opened a window into a real life from the past. The suite was in three movements: a halting, mournful Allemande, a graceful Courante and solemn Sarabande. Gondko’s playing was beautiful. Marti took a turn at the harpsichord for three pieces by Vincenzo Pellegrini. She had a nice touch, though this music was not quite as interesting or virtuosic as Scarlatti. Pellegrini’s writing was mostly chordal, with less distinct material. It didn’t help that all three pieces used similar rhythmic ideas. 

I wish the fourth and final set could have ended with a more definitive, impressive bang. The recorder wobbled in pitch by this point, and the closing Chaconne by Jacques Champion de Chambonnières looped around the same final cadential sequence about ten times. 

If I had an additional nitpick, it was that the format of short Baroque movements by various composers, often played without pause within each set, made it hard to keep track of the program. But it was a good concert! The second set in particular was arresting from beginning to end, a showcase of pure Baroque delight. This is not to discount the contribution of Michał Gondko; his lute playing is special, and maybe future EMN concerts involving the lute can opt for smaller spaces to bring out all the qualities of this instrument.