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.