Issue #43
Last Update December 24, 2005
Arts Early Music New York by David Katz Early Music New York, the new name for the Ensemble for Early Music and New York's Grande Bande, celebrated the start of its 30th season with a truly festive program: Handel's Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks, conducted by Frederic Renz and performed by an impressive orchestra of original instruments consisting of 12 violins, three viols, three cellos, a violone or bass, nine trumpets, 12 oboes, five bassoons (six counting the contrabassoon), nine horns, a flute and three tympani. The joyful noise produced confirmed EMNY's place as the preeminent early music group in New York, and perhaps the nation.
Both the Water Music and Royal Fireworks Music were composed for outdoor performance, accounting for the orchestration, heavy in wind instruments whose sound could carry in an open space. Playing in the marble-walled St. Ignatius Loyola Church on Park Avenue in New York, the effect was truly stunning, although the conductor was careful to keep the dynamics within bounds for the pleasure of the audience. Similar care was given to the tempi; in a highly reflective and echoing space like the church, tempo must be kept moderate lest the slow decay of sound reduce the swifter passages to musical mush. Dr. Renz managed to keep the music clear and sparkling, while retaining the excitement inherent in both compositions.
The Water Music is actually a grouping of three suites, in D major, F major and G major. Many of the movements are dance movements, which are often played mechanically by orchestras with no feeling for dance. EMNY provided the rhythmic drive that dance music requires. Each section of the orchestra got a chance to shine: in the Suite in D Major, strings and oboes were in the forefront; in the Suite in F Major, bassoons carried the melody in one movement while the baroque horns, shaped like French horns but with a double curl, got several opportunities to predominate. The horn players handled their instruments with great skill, avoiding the cracking that often mars such performances and demonstrating the sweetness of tone that these instruments can provide, while performing with an agility that is unusual in such difficult instruments. In the Suite in G major, the Baroque flute was featured. A wooden flute with no raised lip plate and fewer keys than the modern flute, the Baroque flute has a mellowness that simply can't be achieved with the modern metal Boehm flute. Its more limited range required a switch to a Baroque piccolo during the movement. Both the flute and piccolo were enchanting; Charles Brink, the flautist, is to be congratulated on his performance.
The baroque oboes and baroque trumpets also deserve their share of praise, although the oboes, an instrument with piercing sound in the Renaissance and early Baroque, were somewhat subdued at this performance. With only one stringed bass, the bassoons provided the bulk of the bass line, and did so very well.
Saint Ignatius Loyola is a very large church and was filled to capacity for this performance. It is good that EMNY now has a large enough venue to give them the audience they deserve. Still, church acoustics being what they are, perhaps EMNY should consider an occasional appearance in a real concert hall for their larger efforts. The chapel at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine and other church settings are appropriate for small concerts, particularly those dominated by liturgical music, which after all was written with church acoustics in mind, but the larger works demand a different sound in order to be heard properly. The more comfortable seats of a concert hall wouldn't hurt, either.
The rest of EMNY's season promises to be as exciting as its opening concert. On November 11 and 12 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, EMNY will present Renaissance Women, the emergence of women as composers; on December 12, 18, 19, 25 and 26, also at St. John's, A Colonial Christmas, Christmastide in colonial America; on March 12, 2005, at St. James' Church, Bach's Orchestra, suites and concerti; and on May 14, 2005, Vivaldi's Women, music for the Ospedale della Pieta. Early Music New York's website is http://www.earlymusicny.org .
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