incident light

July 13, 2014 I missed the first two concerts of this year’s Cactus Pear Music Festival, but Numbers Three and Four afforded ample pleasures.  Nearly all the music in these two concerts, last Thursday and Sunday, came from 18th-century Europe — an unusual period concentration for Cactus Pear. Most of the musicians were returning  Cactus Pear veterans recruited from hither and yon by founder, artistic director and violinist Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio.  The venue once again was Coker United Methodist Church, which is in the midst of a geographic transformation: It continues to front, as before, on a leafy country road, but the rear parking lot has sprouted new entrances and a large LED sign addressing the next leg of the Wurzbach Parkway.    Similarly perched between eras was the most interesting work on these two concerts, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Trio Sonata in A Minor for oboe, violin and basso continuo. We don’t get to hear much CPE Bach nowadays, although in his own time his fame greatly surpassed that of his father, Johann Sebastian. The father’s unequalled genius came to be widely recognized in the 19th century and pushed the son’s achievements into the shadows, but more recently Emanuel’s stature has risen with a deeper understanding of his influence on the Romantic period.  The Trio Sonata that opened the Saturday concert dates from 1735, when Emanuel was about 21 years old — this year is his tricentennial. The music was very different from his father’s quasi mathematical formalism —  more impetuous and exploratory, more crowded with incident, one might even say more urban in its energy.  The performance was chock full of felicities. Individualy notable were the focused tone of oboist Rong-Huey Liu, the lively rhythms of violinist Dmitri Pogorelov, the singing line of cellist Fred Edelen (former San Antonio Symphony principal cellist, now assistant principal with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw) and the enterprising elaboration of the figured bass by harpsichordist Christina Edelen. More welcome still was the balanced teamwork of the ensemble as a whole. Ms. Liu also impressed on Thursday night with her nimbleness and flexibility in a Bernhard Henrik Crussell Divertimento for oboe and strings and in Mozart’s Quartet in F for oboe and strings.  Baritone Timothy Jones put his considerable vocal and expressive range to work in cantatas by GF Handel and JS Bach and in Jean-Philippe Rameau’s delightful “Thetis,” depicting the rivalry of Neptune and Jupiter for the mortal maiden of the title. (Neptune’s rage was accompanied by a delicious flurry of fury from Ms. Sant’Ambrogio.)  Mr. Jones has sometimes in the past sounded more comfortable at the high end than the low, or vice versa, but this time around both ends sounded limpid and confident even in Handel’s “Spande ancor a mio dispetto,” which runs the gamut. The baritone delivered lovely, affecting singing in the arias of Bach’s “Ich habe genug,” a farewell to life’s pain, but more memorable were the recitatives, which allowed greater scope for his vocal theatrics.  Cellists Anthony Ross and Beth Rapier, both from the Minnesota Orchestra, made a fine showing in Vivaldi’s Concerto in G Minor for Two Cellos and Strings — allegros stomping and fiery flanking a stately largo.  If the festival had an MVP award, it might go to Christina Edelen, whose right foot was injured when a piano fell on it — really! — early in the week. Playing womanfully through the pain, she supported the entire Saturday evening concert and the Handel cantata on Thursday with her fluid, imaginative continuo work on harpsichord.  Excellent as the solo work was in both concerts, their hallmark was the ensemble playing, which was consistently taut and poised, yet supple enough to allow individual personalities to emerge in myriad spirited details. It was remarkable how a brief fillip from Mr. Ross or a turn of phrase from Ms. Sant’Ambrogio could elevate the conversation without dominating it.  Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in G Minor, on Saturday night, suffered slightly from a carpentry problem:  Violinist Craig Sorgi’s left foot happened to occupy a spot on the platform that squeaked with every shift of his weight.  But Mr. Sorgi also can be cited more happily as the education director of the festival’s Young Artist Program, whose members on Saturday contributed quite a nice performance of a movement from Gordon Jacob’s Oboe Quartet, congenial music influenced by english folk idioms. The players were Katerina Chavez (oboe), Mario Zadra (Violin), Emma Reynolds (viola) and Terri Landez (cello). Mike Greenberg

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