Above: Members of the ensemble for ‘The Networker’ concert. Image: supplied. Featured image: (l-r) Violinists John Ma, Ella Bennetts and violist Brad Tham. Photo credit Peter Hislop.
Salut! Baroque’s fourth and final concert for 2024 brought us another comprehensive journey through their target era through a fresh lens and theme.
Johann Georg Pisendel was a string hero, strong musical personality and networker of the Baroque, even if relatively unknown to us as a star violinist or even a composer.
This programme placed an emphasis on the popular violinist’s connections, friendships and working relationships with major Baroque musical figures. These included period superstar instrumentalists such as Bach and Vivaldi.
Whilst the concert contained no movements from the violin concerti written for him by some of the Baroque’s biggest names (Albinoni, Vivaldi and Telemann, according to Tom Blomfield’s typically excellent programme notes) we did hear some very eloquent string moments from composers Pisendel befriended, worked with as a musician, or was impacted by their output.
Bach was represented by an intimate and seamless rendering of the grace and tension-release flow built into his famous Air on the G String.
Albinoni was brought to us from Salut! Baroque strings in a dynamic performance of the Sonata a cinque in G minor Op2 No 11.
In this event emphasising the analogue networking skill of a high-profile string player, there were several hero moments for winds.
The recorder, oboe and bassoon experts joining Salut! Baroque strings this time worked with impressively articulated and beautifully blended lines at all times, no matter what the ensemble structure.
A highlight of the discovery for this reviewer was the total change of pace and feel which occurred for the delivery of two movements from Czech composer Jan Zelenka’s Miserere in C minor ZWV 57.
Zelenka was a close friend of both Pisendel and Telemann. These Miserere movements featured three recorders and oboe at the centre of the dramatic instrumental tapestry.
Telemann’s link to ‘The Networker’ and law graduate/musician Johann Pisendel was represented by his Concerto in B minor for 2 flutes and bassoon TWV 53:hl. This work’s slow and fast movement pairing offered finely drawn, different sound worlds. The music of this Baroque great on winds resonated with penetrating, well-articulated grace in the Verbrugghen Hall.
Above: the ensemble of strings, winds and harpischord for this final Salut! Baroque concert for 2024. Photo credit: Peter Hislop.
New, or comparatively unknown Baroque names and works were plentiful in this concert, as always. Our introduction to Johann Janitsch’s ‘Adagio ma non Troppo’ from Quadro O haupt voll Blutt Blut und Wunden offered an exquisite moment of conversation between John Ma (baroque violin) and Brad Tham (baroque viola).
Johann Friederich Fasch’s Concerto in C minor for Bassoon FaWV L:c2 was expertly delivered by Ben Hoadley. It was a thrill to follow this species of wind soloist with its inimitable voice. In a concerto combo not often heard in concert.
In this work, the effective switching in role by Hoadley from solo prominence to accompaniment were equally as successful, displaying great collaboration with the Salut! Baroque ensemble in this introduction to Fasch’s music for us.
Molter’s Concerto in B major for 4 recorders was a nice shift in timbre, with excellent gesturing, pleasing blend and demarcation of contrasts from this wind team. The quartet included Ben Hoadley switching from bassoon to recorder for this unique offering.
The event concluded with minor key Vivaldi. The Concerto in G minor RV107 for oboe, recorder and bassoon. It was a shame to see recorder 2 and viola on the stage sideline rather than joining a full musical cast finale as is often the case in Salut! Concerts.
This work was played commandingly however by the ensemble members participating. We heard Vivaldi wearing a more sombre hat mostly, but the momentum toward the end of the Allegro brought the concert home in a more familiar ecstatic-Vivaldi state. The required and pleasing energy here was a hit with the crowd-as was the feeling for the entire concert’s works connected to Pisendel’s network.
As with the rest of this concert, with pleasing shifts in colour and instrumental line up, contrast and character were well captured.
It was a thrill to hear the star networker, lawyer and violinist Pisendel’s composition, Imitation des Caractères de la Danse begin this tranche-de-Baroque for The Networker’s banlieue of strings as well as formidably more from the wind players. These dance movements, so popular in the Baroque environment of Pisendel-plus-network were concise style-personality-portraits in the hands of Salut! Baroque’s string plus wind players.
The works following continued delivering voices varied, in successful, signature fine blend for this musical institution, which has been delighting and enlightening us for almost thirty years.
We look forward to spending 2025 with them, their period instruments and introductions to new and loved Baroque composers.
The Salut! Baroque ensemble for this concert consisted of:
Sally Melhuish – Recorder
Alicia Crossley – Recorder
Jane Downer – Baroque Oboe/ Recorder
Ben Hoadley – BaroqueBassoon/Recorder
John Ma – Baroque Violin
Ella Bennetts – Baroque Violin
Brad Tham – Baroque Viola
Tim Blomfield – Baroque Cello/
Violoncello Piccolo
Julia Magri – Double Bass
Monika Kornel- Harpsichord
