Access Atlanta > Arts > Our Reviews > Archives > 2007 > September > 02 > Entry
New Trinity Baroque Plays the Hits
CONCERT REVIEW New Trinity Baroque. Saturday at Saint Bartholomew's Episcopal Church. www.newtrintitybaroque.org
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Trinity Baroque, Atlanta’s most established early music group, is entering its ninth season. But a first-time listener is struck by the earnestness and engagement of the players. This concert, billed at “Best of Baroque,” featured some of the most popular pieces from past seasons, especially Handel and Bach.
A recurring theme during much of the evening was the tension between the concertmaster, Carrie Krause, who plays a baroque violin, and baroque cellist Andre Laurent O’Neil. A striking and charismatic blonde, Krause turns her playing into something resembling a dance. In the first two pieces, excerpts from Handel’s oratorio “Solomon,” she was handicapped by tuning problems. But she redeemed herself through the rest of the evening, with a tone that balanced sweetness with character. Like a little two-cycle engine, she takes a while to get warmed up, and then off she goes.
O’Neil is musically her peer, as became clear in Francesco Geminiani’s Concerto in D Minor, based on Corelli’s Concerto Grosso No. 12. The final piece before the intermission, it became a sort of “dueling banjos” competition between Krause and O’Neil. His playing is intense and, despite being stuck behind a cello, he is almost as riveting to watch as Krause.
Two vocalists appeared as guests: Kathryn Mueller, a young soprano, and Terry Barber, a high countertenor. Mr. Barber seemed at first underpowered in the lower part of his voice, as he and Mueller sang a duet from “Solomon.” But as the evening progressed, he gained strength and confidence. When we got to Bach’s “Erbarme dich,” he was ready to take on Krause in another of the evening’s riveting rivalries.
Sacred music made up the first part of the program. After the intermission, things became secular. And that, of course, includes opera. Here, in Nicola Porpora’s “Alto Giove,” an aria from “Polifemo,” and Handel’s popular “Ombra ma fu,” an ode to a shade tree from “Serse” (with some music shared with “Messiah”), Barber demonstrated his delightfully natural soaring high register. It was easy to imagine the powerful castrati voices that once rang on the same arias.
Mueller has the kind of pure sound, with little vibrato, that is ideal for this material. Her voice was well matched to Barber’s more silvery tones, and she held her own in the duets. She showed a good sense of tragedy in Handel’s “Lascia ch’io pianga” from “Rinaldo,” one of the composer’s youthful masterpieces. But in his soprano showcase “Tornami a vagheggiar,” from “Alcina,” one of Handel’s last and most ornate operas, she struggled to reach the high notes.
Predrag Gosta, the group’s founder, conducted from the keyboards. He kept things together, mostly, and his tempi were lively and sensitive. His witty and informed comments enlivened the evening.
Permalink | | Categories: Classical Music
