SFCM: Baroque Ensemble concert

Last Sunday I went to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, to hear the winners of the Baroque Ensemble Concerto Competition doing their thing.

This was also my first time in the Conservatory's new building, a high-rise on Van Ness Avenue. The Barbro Osher Recital Hall is at the top of the building, a clean-lined room whose glass walls look out on panoramic views of San Francisco. It was lovely to see the seagulls wheel around during the music, though one did hit the glass with a thud. There is a disadvantage to the hall & its height, which is that getting up there is not a problem as people straggle in by ones & twos & threes, but when everyone leaves at the end there is inevitably a crowd that needs to wait for the elevator.

The Baroque Ensemble (headed by Corey Jamason & Elisabeth Reed) was all strings plus harpsichord. We had five concertos: in the first half, one each by Boismortier, John Garth (a British composer new to me), & Vivaldi, & in the second half, another one by Vivaldi & one by Bach. I was interested to hear the Boismortier & Garth, as they were less familiar to me, but (based on the music; this is not a comment on the performances) it was clear why Vivaldi & Bach are the better-known names; their pieces just sparked & dazzled in a way that outshone the more sedate elegance of the more obscure two.

The Boismortier (Concerto for Violoncello in D Major, Opus 26 #6, which is, according to the program note for this piece by Stella Hannock, "recognized as the first solo concerto for any instrument written by a French composer") featured Octavio Mujica on baroque cello; the Garth (Concerto for Violoncello in D Major, Opus 1, #1, & Isabel Tannenbaum's program note for this piece tells us it "is considered to be the first of its kind written by an English composer") featured Kyle Stachnik on baroque cello; & the Vivaldi that closed the first half, the Concerto for Two Violins in A Minor, RV 523, featured Annemarie Schubert & Eliana Estrada on baroque violins.

After the intermission, we had our second helping of Vivaldi, which this time was the Concerto for Violoncello in D Minor, RV 407, featuring Hasan Abualhaj on baroque cello, followed by the final piece, probably the best-known of the lot, Bach's Concerto for Harpsichord in D Minor, BWV 1052, featuring Yunyi Ji on harpsichord.

The soloists played as part of the Ensemble throughout, & there was a nice sense of camaraderie throughout the afternoon. As noted in the program book (the other two write-ups were by Samuel C Nedel for the Vivaldis & Clayton Luckadoo for the Bach) the pieces kept to the fast-slow-fast pattern of three movements that Vivaldi popularized for the concerto form, & it may seem as if there was a lot of cello going on, but it's a tribute to composers & performers that the music never lagged or seemed rote. As the last notes of Ji's harpsichord glittered down upon up, the ensemble joined the full house in applause all around for each other.