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Orchestra's brilliant performance breathes new life into early music

Marc Shulgold, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 23, 2006 at midnight

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For all of Denver's many musical attractions - symphony, opera, chamber music - there remained two glaring holes. We hadn't heard enough of the very old and the very new: an early music group and a contemporary- music program.

Judging from the brilliant performance by the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, heard Friday in St. Paul Lutheran Church, early music is now very well represented.

Led by violinist Cynthia Miller Freivogel and harpsichordist Frank Nowell, BCOC offered a delightful evening of gorgeous concertos by Bach and Telemann.

The Bach works are masterpieces set in minor keys: the D-minor Double Violin Concerto, the oboe-violin C-minor Concerto and the Suite in A minor for oboe, more familiar as the Second Orchestral Suite for flute.

Hearing these beloved pieces played on period instruments (or modern reproductions) in the intimacy of St. Paul was like experiencing them for the first time.

The sound is airy and transparent, the harmonies and layers of melody clearly heard.

Freivogel and Tekla Cunningham brought fresh excitement to the D-minor Concerto, while oboist Debra Nagy displayed dazzling technique and soulful expressiveness in the other two.

As lofty as this music is in counterpoint and virtuosity, the two Telemann works impressed in a more down-to-earth fashion. A concerto in E for flute, oboe d'amore and viola d'amore charmed listeners with a folksy tunefulness, while a concerto in G, for four violins only, induced a smile that never went away.

In the E-major concerto, Cunningham switched to the rarely heard (or seen) viola d'amore - an instrument of six playing strings and an equal number of sympathetics. She was joined by flutist Tamara Meredith and Nagy in a lovely performance.

This 12-member group performs standing, playing string instruments with lighter Baroque bows, sheepgut strings, minimal vibrato and a lower concert pitch (A=415, instead of the modern 440).

But that's all technical stuff - what's important is that these wonderful works emerged with vitality, solid musicianship and a warmth of sound that erased any thoughts that the Baroque was a period of dry, dusty relics.

In the hands of the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, early music is alive and rocking.

Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado

• Grade: A

• When and where: Repeated at 7:30 p.m. today at Bethany Lutheran Church, 4500 E. Hampden Ave.; 4 p.m. Sunday at First United Methodist Church, 1421 Spruce St., Boulder.

• Cost: $10 to $20

• Information: 303-889-1012

Marc Shulgold is the music and dance writer. or 303-954-5296