incident light
respond
Evan Kory (harpsichord), Eric Gratz (violin) and Morgen Johnson (cello) take bows after playing Vivaldi’s Sonata in A. Below, Mr. Kory praised the French-style double-manual harpsichord provided by local maker Gerald Self.
Old music, sounding new
music
August 9, 2017
A few years ago, the Olmos Ensemble
started launching pre-emptive strikes
on the September-May music season
by offering a couple of August concerts.
This year, the number rises to three in
the space of eight days – a virtual
mini-festival in Laurel Heights United
Methodist Church.
The first outing, an all-baroque concert
on Aug. 6, was especially notable for
stunning work by violinist Eric Gratz
(Olmos artistic director and San
Antonio Symphony concertmaster)
and splendid contributions on
harpsichord by guest artist Evan Kory.
Their estimable colleagues were Paul
Lueders (oboe), Mark Teplitsky (flute),
and Morgen Johnson (cello).
The program included one relatively
uobscure composer, Giovanni
Benedetto Platti (1692-1763),
represented by his Trio Sonata in D
for oboe, violin and basso continuo (in
this performance, cello and
harpsichord). The style is playful,
sometimes highly virtuosic in its
demands, and full of sunny lyricism.
If the ending of its fourth and final
movement seems a trifle abrupt, that’s
because the only surviving manuscript
is missing one or more pages, and the
standard workaround is to add a brief
transition to a da capo repeat and close
at a plausible but not entirely
convincing cadence in the middle. That
movement includes some fast
roller-coaster runs (in 32nd notes) that
are not so unusual for the violin but are likely a bear to pull off on the oboe. Both Mr. Gratz and Mr. Lueders, of course, delivered those runs with ease. The latter’s tone was rich, big and more woody than reedy.
Here and in Vivaldi’s Sonata in A, Op. 2, No. 2, for violin and harpsichord (with cello continuo added in this performance), Mr. Gratz seemed to be having more fun than is legal in 14 states. He was fully attuned to baroque style – the (mostly) non-vibrato technique, the shape of the sound envelopes, the execution of rhythm, the well-night perfect pitch and focused tone – but he rose above style by giving performances that were thoroughly personal and of the moment. He brought wonderful flexibility and feeling to the brief adagio, and tremendous zest to the final giga.
Before playing a pair of solo sonatas by Scarlatti, Mr. Kory praised and gave a little tour of the excellent French-style double-manual harpsichord provided by local maker Gerald Self. Mr. Kory also spoke a little about Scarlatti and suggested he was a kind of proto-Romantic, a point of view that was underscored by the almost Chopinesque suppleness the harpsichordist brought to the F minor sonata, No. 466 in the Kirkpatrick catalogue. The Sonata in C, K. 159, was all snap and dazzle and fanfare-like flourishes.
Mr. Teplitsky’s elegant technique was heard in the opening and closing works, J.S. Bach’s Sonata in E minor for flute and harpsichord (with cello continuo) and Johann Joachim Quantz’s Trio Sonata in C minor for flute, oboe and basso continuo (harpsichord and cello). In the latter, the flutist and oboist made an ideal team, their tones blending beautifully.
Perhaps a word of explanation would be in order for those who are wondering why the Platti and Quantz “trio sonatas” were played by four musicians. The key is the third part, the basso continuo, a line that in baroque times was notated schematically on a single bass staff. In performance, that line might be played by either a harpsichord or a low string instrument such as a cello, or both, at least one of which would be expected to improvise on the simple notated line. In this concert, Ms. Johnson’s limpid cello tone anchored the continuo’s rhythm and harmony by staying mainly with the notes as written, while Mr. Kory enriched it with elaborations. So now you know.
The Olmos Ensemble’s August series continues on Aug. 10 at 7 pm with a recital by Mr. Gratz and pianist Euntaek Kim in a program that includes work by Mozart and Prokofiev; and a French program Aug. 13 at 3 pm with Mr. Teplitsky, Mr. Lueders, Mr. Kim and Ilya Shterenberg (clarinet).
Mike Greenberg
Olmos Ensemble