Fretwork, Clare Wilkinson
Music of Henry Purcell, antique and progressive all at once
January 20, 2009In recent times, the English composer Henry Purcell was most widely known for a piece he didn’t write -- the “Trumpet Voluntary,” which dates from 1700, five years after his death from tuberculosis at age 37. (Maybe he was the ghost writer?) At the end of his life, he was the Stephen Sondheim of his time, his country’s foremost composer for the theater, including incidental music and songs for many plays and one full-fledged opera, the masterful “Dido and Aeneas.” But near the start of his career, at age 22, he dashed off a remarkable series of fantasies in the then-old-fashioned polyphonic style for three and four viols. (A viol is a six-stringed, fretted instrument related to the guitar, but made in several sizes, played with a bow, and held upright between the player’s legs, like a cello. In Italy, it’s called a viola da gamba.)
The six members of the English ensemble Fretwork, joined by mezzo-soprano Clare Wilkinson, visited on Jan. 18 with an all-Purcell program, including the 12 fantasies for viols of 1680, several songs and the famous lament of Dido from “Dido and Aeneas.” The San Antonio Chamber Music Society presented the concert at Temple Beth-El.
Playing in various combinations, Fretwork impressed with impeccable intonation, deft technique, clear delineation of voices and deep appreciation for both the antiquarian and progressive aspects of the music: Though the fantasies of 1680 looked backward to the compositional technique of Renaissance polyphony, they also anticipated Purcell’s later theatrical music, and indeed the music of a century later, with highly sophisticated, often surprising melodic contours and, in quick passages, restless energy.
Wilkinson, for the most part, exemplified the pure, organlike, non-vibrato vocal style of the period, and the highest standard of historically informed performance. (A bit of vibrato crept into some sustained notes in the upper middle register, paradoxically giving those patches a bland quality.) Her pitch control was extraordinary, and her phrasing and dynamics always conveyed what the texts were about. Most remarkable was the click-stop precision of her shifts from note to note. Wilkinson's contributions included, along with Dido's Lament, the songs "In Love's a Sweet Passion," "Sweeter than Roses," "O Solitude" and "Music for a While." Too short a while.
Mike
Greenberg
