IN REVIEW

By ANDREW MARTIN SMITH

The 25th annual Bach & Beyond Baroque Music Festival continued Saturday with an evening program of concerti.

True to form, Maestro Grant Cooper, the festival’s Artistic Director and Conductor, continued his encouragement of young, up-and-coming musicians by programming two technically demanding works presented by artists at the early stages of their musical careers.

The concert opened with a concerto for harpsichord written by the seemingly monolithic Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), with Alan Giambattista as soloist. This particular harpsichord concerto (BWV 1056) was constructed in a typical fast-slow-fast formal design, featuring a number of musical materials borrowed from other Bach works in addition to ideas inspired by Bach’s contemporaries.

Giambattista and the International Baroque Soloists performed admirably throughout, but most nobily in the second movement, during which the sparse, sporadic nature of the accompaniment left little room for error.

While all of the composers selected for this event were no stranger to the intricacies of creating concerti, the composer appearing second on the evening’s program was arguably a true Baroque master of the genre. Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), an Italian contemporary of J.S. Bach, is credited with creating around 500 concerti, of all shapes and sizes, for a variety of instruments.

One of the wind instruments for which Vivaldi frequently wrote concerti was the bassoon; he wrote around 40 in total, eclipsing all of the other wind concerti in his output by sheer volume alone. After some casual set changes, Maestro Cooper welcomed Adrian Wittmer, who had just finished his sophomore year at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester to perform the “Bassoon Concerto in C Major” from memory. Wittmer had a commanding sound, yet possessed enough control of subtle nuance to effectively communicate changing character and emotion, particularly within Vivaldi’s compound melodic lines. Wittmer’s lyricism and impeccable tuning were on full display during the second movement; these musical aspects are notoriously difficult to achieve consistently, especially on bassoon, and this young performer navigated the challenge with great aplomb.

After a brief intermission, and a rather significant set change, the program concluded with “Piano Concerto” (K. 414) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), featuring 15-year-old soloist Collin Parker-Szekely.

The young pianist performed from memory, with infectious, youthful exuberance that was mimicked and reflected by the augmented cohort of International Baroque Soloists. While the addition of four wind instruments (i.e., two oboes and two French horns) amplified the depth of color available to the accompanying ensemble, it was the intimate quality, and impressive sensitivity, of Parker-Szekely’s playing that really enhanced the timbral palette of the work.

In fact, upon further reflection, the relatively small piano the soloist utilized seemed surprisingly effective with regard to how his musical ideas were transmitted into the historic space. Often, one hears a Mozart piano concerto performed on a grand piano, in front of a large(ish) orchestra, on the vast stage of a great hall. The delicate chamber aspect of this presentation, reinforced by the cozy setting of the 1891 Fredonia Opera House, allowed each note to be savored and cherished. This atmosphere brought a lightness to the performance, which was quite refreshing, and it certainly deserved the crowd’s rousing ovation.

Andrew Martin Smith is a composer, clarinetist, General Manager of the Society of Composers, Inc., and Senior Adjunct Lecturer of Music at the State University of New York at Fredonia, where he teaches courses in music theory and composition, in addition to his role as Instructor of Music Theory and Composition at Interlochen Arts Camp in Interlochen, Mich.