Jakarta awash with instrumental music

Jakarta awash with instrumental music

By Y. Bintang Prakarsa

JAKARTA (JP): Last week was a time of world-class instrumental
musical performances in the city. On the cramped stage of Erasmus
Huis, the splendor that was Baroque was resurrected on Sunday in
a gripping account by the fourteen members of Les Musiciens du
Louvre, one of the best period instrument ensembles in Europe.

Their program, L'Europe Baroque, was a sampling of some of the
best orchestral music of early eighteenth century Europe composed
by Antoine Dauvergne (1713-1799), Georg Philipp Telemann (1618-
1767), George Frideric Handel (1685-1759), J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
and Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741).

Baroque instrumental music was highly cosmopolitan: musicians
traveled, compositions were printed abroad, composers were
imported and musical ideas were exchanged freely between the
courts and establishments in Europe.

The movement of musical performers and ideas made possible
cross-fertilizations in major social and economic centers all
over Europe, with a number of interesting inventions, whether in
Paris (Dauvergne), Hamburg (Telemann), London (Handel) or Venice
(Vivaldi).

Even someone in remote Thuringia (Bach) managed to procure
copies of French and Italian models of composition. Most
widespread was the French overture (a piece that contrasts
majestic, chordal section(s) with fast and imitative ones), the
French suite, (a set of movements associated with dance names and
their characteristic rhythms and moods) and the Italian concerto
(a work of several, usually three, movements that feature one or
more soloists).

Dauvergne's Concert de symphonies no. 1 in B-flat Major opens
with the French overture style, followed by five movements that
are often highly Italian. Its faster movements eschew the
characteristic French fluidity and replace it with clear-cut
melodies, dynamic surges and energetic drive.

Telemann, the most popular and resourceful German composer of
his times, went further in combining French dance suite, French
overture and Italian concerto in one work: the Orchestral Suite
in D Major for Viola da Gamba (a cello-like instrument) and
Strings.

The gambist Juan Manuel Quintana, who is also the conductor of
the ensemble, played the delicate and nasal-toned instrument very
movingly, especially in the slow and profusely ornamented
Sarabande.

With Handel and Bach, the pendulum swings to the Italian side.
In Handel's Concerto Grosso op 6 no. 6 in G Minor, Italian
characteristics are combined with Handel's own talent, resulting
in grand orchestral effects like the alternation between unison
and chordal passages with taut counterpoint. Les Musiciens and
solo violinists Pablo Valetti and Nicolas Mazzoleni projected the
dramatic gestures convincingly.

In Bach's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E Major, the
tendency is to concentrate. His usual fondness for thematic or
motivic manipulation resulted in a very unified first movement.

The simple E Major broken triad that begins the ritornello
theme is kept alive in all parts and endures various
transformations, thus blurring the distinction between orchestral
and solo passages (played by Pablo Valetti)

The concert ended with Vivaldi's Concerto for Strings in G
Minor, a splendid compact work that is very -- should we say --
un-Vivaldian: intense, rich in contrapuntal inventions and does
not lapse easily into predictable sequences. Its last movement
was an all-out extravaganza, driving incessantly with melodic
leaps, extreme dynamics, tremolos, busy basses and furious
syncopation. Whether this is a frenzied rage or a blatant joke is
hard to tell, but at least, amid the fire, some players smiled
widely as if tickled by its coarseness.

What made their efforts stupefying -- as was particularly true
in the Vivaldi concerto -- was their ability to sustain an
impelling rhythm and inject energy when the music demanded so.
Here, the young Quintana, 28, must be commended for his acute
sense of pacing and form. A simply awesome performance!

Another concert, smaller in dimension but no less absorbing,
was given by internationally renown Dutch violinist Emmy Verhey
and pianist Carlos Moerdijk at Erasmus Huis on Wednesday.

This seasoned team for more than 25 years was as impressive as
other mature first-rank performers. Ease of technique was taken
for granted (Verhey was a pupil of David Oistrakh and has
performed with eminent conductors like Leonard Bernstein and
Bernard Haitink, as well as soloists like Yehudi Menuhin and the
Oistrach brothers) without, even in the most demanding passages,
overshadowing the music itself.

Although the program gave them chance to relish in big sounds
and brilliant showpieces, in the end it was humor and lyricism
that prevailed.

It began with the eighth Violin Sonata in G Major by Ludwig
van Beethoven (1770-1827), a relatively early work that shows his
solid classical craftsmanship. Everywhere, dance-like lightness
prevails. The graceful second movement, a minuet, has nothing in
common with the aggressive scherzos of the late Beethoven, while
the exhilarating third and last movement, Allegro vivace, is as
amusing as any of Haydn's last movements.

The second work, the 1927 Violin Sonata by Maurice Ravel
(1875-1937), has an interesting historical stamp. His love of
jazz is reflected in the second movement, titled Blues, a tribute
to the jazz genre, but not in the literal sense. With
syncopations, persistent beat thumpings and frenzied pizzicatos,
it turns the blues rhythm into a parody.

Lastly, it was rewarding to listen to Sergey Prokofiev (1891-
1953) as principally a melodist, at least in his Violin Sonata
no. 1 in F minor.

After all, "I love melody, and I regard it as the most
important element in music," he wrote in a letter.

According to the latest scholarly opinion, the wildness in
this sonata is perhaps best read as reflecting the horror of the
Stalinist purges (nothing to do with the World War II): the rough
folk-like bowings, pizzicatos, syncopations and melodies of the
last movement are grotesque caricature of those who were in
power. Tenderness, however, seems to be the norm: it is virtually
present in the whole work -- in the calm first movement (Andante
Assai), in the third movement (Andante) with nocturne-like
flourishes, in the flowing second themes of the second and fourth
movements, in the sonata's subdued ending.

Verhey's performance was always refined, never harsh, and
always projected the lyricism inherent in the works, while
Moerdijk's handling of the piano showed him an equal partner that
shared her virtuosity and sensitivity. In short, it was one of
the best chamber music concerts ever heard in Jakarta.