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Tafelmusik Revives the Baroque in Toronto
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12292 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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1 / 1987 |
1,139 Words |
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Jaak Liivoja-Lorius
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Tafelmusik, the Toronto-based Baroque orchestra, opened its eighth season with a program of works drawn from their recent tour of Mexico and Argentina. They covered more than 16,000 kilometers in their travels there. Over 5,000 people, many of them for the first time, heard performances of Baroque music on the kind of instruments used during that period.
Interest in Baroque music on original instruments is a relatively new phenomenon in Latin America, and Tafelmusik was pleasantly surprised at the enthusiastic reception that audiences and critics gave them. The principal challenge for any musical ensemble, however, is to gain critical acclaim on home territory. For Tafelmusik, as indeed for virtually all early-music groups, the first few seasons were difficult to say the least.
The main hurdle to be cleared was that two or three of the most influential critics in Toronto were initially unreceptive to the idea of "regressing" to the point of using "primitive" instruments when modern versions were the norm. The intonation problems between the strings and winds at times drove the critics to distraction. It amounted to a baptism of fire for the performers. That they not only survived the experience but also gained from it speaks well of them.
Tafelmusik might not have lasted had not Jean Lamon been hired as concertmaster and music director in the autumn of 1981. She brought to the job considerable experience in Baroque violin and performance practice with Sigiswald Kuijken at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. Following her return to America in the mid-1970s, she led a number of ensembles specializing in early music - the Smithsonian Chamber Players, the Boston Camerata, and Banchetto Musicale. In 1974, Jean Lamon became the first and only violinist to win the prestigious Erwin Bodky Award for Excellence in the Performance of Early Music.
Under her leadership of Tafelmusik, the problems of intonation, rhythm, and sonority have been solved and no excuses about the inherent technical problems posed by Baroque instruments are necessary. One of the most worthwhile by-products of Tafelmusik's apprenticeship was that the learning process of the orchestra educated the critics as well. Critics who at first responded to the orchestra with skepticism verging on intolerance now are more likely to comment on the inappropriateness of a massive Toronto Symphony performance of Handel's Messiah. That is not to say that the Mozart reorchestration of the score was in bad taste - far from it. Now however, the concertgoer can choose between this and a leaner, pithier version, one that Handel himself might have conducted.
The Baroque revival, which began quietly in the early years of this century, has blossomed into a musicological phenomenon of major proportions. Pioneers of the revival like the Dolmetsch family and Wanda Landowska would leap for joy. In the recording business, music of the Baroque has virtually outstripped all others in new classical release over the last few years. When this century is done, the Baroque revival will rank alongside the Stravinksy ballets, Britten operas, Bartok quartets, Shostakovich's symphonies, and Schoenbergian miniatures as things that have made our time culturally noteworthy.
Going into its eighth season, Tafelmusik is still young when compared to veteran European ensembles such as Concentus
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