Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Hartford, CT
January 18–19, 2019
by Michael J. Moran
 |
| Lisa Rautenberg |
The fourth “Masterworks” program of the HSO’s 75th season
showcased their own concertmaster Leonid Sigal and associate concertmaster Lisa
Rautenberg as guest conductors in a varied selection of music by or related to
Johann Sebastian Bach.
The concert opened with two short pieces by French
contemporaries of Bach: the overture to Rameau’s opera-ballet “The Temple of
Glory;” and a chaconne from Lully’s opera “Phaeton.” Yale early music
specialist Grant Herreid played theorbo (14-string bass lute) in both works,
and baroque dancer Carlos Fittante added graceful movements to the chaconne, a
stately dance for the court of Louis XIV. Rautenberg led a reduced HSO in animated
performances.
Rautenberg then picked up her violin to play the solo part, and
lead the ensemble from the bow, in a supple account of Bach’s first violin
concerto. In his familiar third orchestral suite, Rautenberg drew fleet
renditions of all five movements from her musicians, with an especially flowing
“Air” on the G string.
The concert’s first half closed with two rarities: the “Gran
Chacona,” a secular song by Bach’s Spanish predecessor Juan Aranes; and a
sonata-variations on the traditional theme, “La Follia,” by his Italian
contemporary Vivaldi. Herreid returned to introduce, sing, and play baroque
guitar in the Chacona, which he had researched and reconstructed (relishing the
robust “a la vida bona” [to the good life] chorus). Both pieces featured loving
accompaniment by Rautenberg and the orchestra and stylish poise, with elegant
period costumes, from Fittante and fellow dancer Robin Gilbert Campos.
Intermission was followed by two relative novelties from
twentieth-century composers. Villa-Lobos’s “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 9” for
string orchestra combines rhythms of the composer’s native Brazil with Bach’s
beloved “prelude and fugue” structure. The Bach-era title of Jacques Ibert’s
“Divertissement” suggests the light entertainment value of this colorfully
orchestrated piece, which includes hilarious parodies of Mendelssohn’s “Wedding
March” and Strauss’s “Blue Danube” waltz. Sigal’s kinetic leadership elicited
both the profundity of Villa-Lobos and the pzazz of Ibert.
The cross-generational appeal of this imaginative program
was clear to an eight-year-old patron who had enjoyed the singer, dancers, and
“circus clown” sounds she heard in “Divertissement.”
