Posted on: Sunday, November 28, 2004

Baroque concert balances authentic with the practical

By Ruth O. Bingham
Special to The Advertiser

"As classical musicians, we love tradition ... secrets passed down along the ages, generation to generation," guest conductor Edwin Outwater explained to the audience attending the Honolulu Symphony concert Friday night.

Outwater — who works with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, who worked with Leonard Bernstein, who worked with Aaron Copland, who studied with Nadia Boulanger, and so on, in an intricate network reaching back hundreds of years — acknowledges traditions.

For the program of Bach and Handel pieces, he scaled down the orchestra's size to fewer than 40 musicians and rearranged their seating to simulate Baroque patterns, splitting the violins and placing the harpsichord — once the foundation and "conductor" of the orchestra — in the center.

But Outwater is not tradition- bound. For him, the search for "authenticity" has meant that too often, Baroque music has been relegated to being "performed by (performance practice) specialists and not by symphony orchestras," and he speculated on where to draw the line: Do we perform Handel's "Water Music" out on a catamaran because it was first performed on a barge on the Thames River? And how "authentic" would that be, after all?

Like many today, Outwater strives for balance, a compromise between an authentic Baroque sound and modern realities.

"These (pieces) were meant to be played on very different instruments (and) none of this music was meant to be conducted (from the podium). That's an interesting position for me to be in," Outwater said, describing his conducting role less as a leader than as a facilitator.

"(The music) has its own momentum. I think it's important, when you're up there waving your hands, that you don't let it get in the way of that, that you let the music unfold on its own."

Outwater did indeed conduct with a light but sure touch, revealing an intimate understanding of the music, careful attention to detail, and elegant taste.

At first, the orchestra sounded uncertain, perhaps uneasy with the changes, and the opening Bach Suite No.3 was rough, but by the end of Bach's "Brandenburg" Concerto No. 5, the musicians had settled into a cohesive, well-balanced ensemble.

The only part of the ensemble that did not settle in were the trumpets in Bach's Suite. Their part is high, played on piccolo trumpets, and the sound remained raw and out of proportion with the rest of the ensemble.

Wrong notes and unstable intonation resulted in occasionally painful passages.

The three soloists featured in the "Brandenburg," however, were a delight. Violinist Ignace Jang, flutist Susan McGinn, and harpsichordist Joseph Pettit, topped themselves with each movement.

Pettit, the focus and anchor of the work, built his first movement cadenza into a thrilling wildwood fantasia that returned to the Baroque's manicured gardens only when the orchestra re-entered.

Always technically precise, McGinn offered her most expressive performance to date, her cool tone in the first movement warming to almost Romantic lushness by the third movement.

Jang wove between the two, leading, commenting, soaring in and out. The final movement brought the first half to a triumphant close, but it was the soloists' feature, the second movement, that remained the central jewel.

Despite Outwater's overly bright tempi and occasional rushing, Handel's joyful, glorious "Water Music" Suite No. 1 captivated the audience.

"One of the most challenging ways of composing is to write in a very simple, straightforward, yet continuously engaging style ... it's genius," Outwater said.

It was a style in which Handel excelled, shifting the audience's attention from one instrument to another.

Individually and in consort, oboists Scott Janusch and Brian Greene, bassoonist Paul Barrett, and harpsichordist Carl Crosier created gorgeous moments, trading off with French hornists George Warnock and Michiko Singh for exciting fanfares.

Generation after generation, whatever the setting, "Water Music" continues to live up to Outwater's description of "spectacular entertainment."