San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
BACH COLLEGIUM SAN DIEGO DELIVERS A GRIPPING, EMPATHETIC PERFORMANCE
Over the last two decades, the Bach Collegium San Diego has, not particularly quietly, established itself as nothing short of a cultural treasure. Musicseekers of all levels — from Messiah-curious to connoisseur — have been gifted music that has thrilled and edified America’s finest city. While Bach Collegium is a collective, it is largely the product of the efforts and expertise of Artistic Director Ruben Valenzuela, a maestro who roots his work in hard-nosed scholarship and utter dedication to the life-affirming power of public music performance.
Like a number of other period-instrument conductors, Valenzuela started his career focused on the music of the Baroque, only coming later to the music of the Classical Era. A smashing concert of Mozart and Beethoven — a concert titled “Apotheosis of the Dance” — at All Soul’s Episcopal Church May 13 presented gripping, empathetic readings of (mostly) familiar works that gave no hint that this music is at all new in Valenzuela’s wheelhouse.
The one work not known by most in the audience was the Mozart’s Symphony K. 16a. This work was initially attributed to a young Mozart, but over the last few years, scholarly consensus has decided that it belongs to another, unknown composer. An unimportant point, as the piece was a surprise delight. The ensemble’s assistant musical director Michael Sponseller, himself an internationally known harpsichordist and fine conductor, led a reading that was athletic and urbane. This piece is an example of “Sturm und Drang,” or “Storm and Stress,” an early 18th century movement in literature and music that emphasizes changes of mood and emotional extremes.
Spurious Mozart was followed by the genuine article with the D Minor Piano Concerto K. 466. Mozart’s virtuosity is one of style: He combines reverence with bawdiness and makes the progression seem logical. It takes artists who know the jokes, the dramatic categories, for this to take full effect. We were treated to that in the guest fortepianist Sylvia Berry. Berry is yet another expert in this music and this instrument, an early version of our modern piano. The fortepiano was the instrument that Mozart wrote his concertos on, for himself to play. Berry and Valenzuela brought this piece to life with depth and brilliance.
The opening theme, famous for its menacing offbeats, which Valenzuela chose to emphasize rather than soften, was deft and precise. Berry was everywhere at once, showing how this instrument, with such an ensemble, can be more powerful than a modern piano. Her solo lines weaved through transparent textures in a way not possible with the massive orchestras of later generations. The two propelled the first movement through its range of moods with a mix of visceral engagement and gravitas. Berry sculpted her lines and gestures to lead, rather than follow the ensemble.
The third movement shows Mozart at his ambiguous best: the rondo theme propels into minor darkness, and only later, when that theme is turned into a rustic dance does it become clear that we have been set up for a kind of joke. The piece isn’t farcical, but neither is it entirely sober, and this razor edge between serious and comic is a quality many performers miss.
Valenzuela’s and Berry’s version combined a regard for the concerto’s solemnity and an understanding of its humor. Throughout, the orchestra was electric and unified, rendering gestural extremes with a knowing and controlled power and clarity.
The second movement, processional and severe, is a pavane, not a dirge; this music needs motion, and Bach Collegium imbued this most famous of the symphony’s movements with a sense of solemn dance lost at a slower tempo. The scherzo was raucous, and one hears in this movement hints of Beethoven’s late style, which combines musical topics from diverse genres.
The trio section presents a hurdy-gurdy, the handcranked instrument played on streets in Beethoven’s time. The reading began innocently, then grew to a culmination of sound and power that was crushing.
The last movement is a fast — thrillingly fast on Friday — country dance that rushed, and climbed, and whirled to its finish, leaving Valenzuela and his band, exhausted, and soaked, and smiling, and needing to come back for multiple curtain calls. The sound of this group with this new repertoire is bold, direct, and purposefully and beautifully disturbing.
We need more.