unday’s concert by Musica Angelica, the Southland’s premier period-instrument ensemble, featured works for guitar, lute and strings.  All the composers featured on the program were the leading proponents of their respective instruments in their days – Giuliani, Kohaut, Weiss, Kropfgans.  If we have not heard these names today, it is because their instruments have gone out of fashion, and not due to any lack of artistry or musicianship.  A quartet of Musica Angelica string players, together with guest lutenist/guitarist John Schneiderman, paid a well-deserved tribute to these second-rank masters long forgotten in the shadow of the great Bach and Handel

The valiant efforts of the musicians were nearly sabotaged by the muddy acoustics of the venue, All Saints Church in Beverly Hills.  The solo lute and guitar sonatas came across as a haze of jumbled notes.  The concertos and quintets also lost much of their delicate rhythmic clarity in a blurred mass of sounds.   Fortunately, enough of the performers’ artistry shone through to make the whole enterprise worthwhile.  Mr. Schneiderman’s solo playing of the guitar and lute was very fine and nuanced, lacking only the extemporaneous excitement that these works’ creators (particularly Weiss) no doubt had possessed.  The French influence in the Weiss and the Kropfgans (Weiss’ pupil) calls for a certain satirical, even demonic, expression (think Rameau) that was largely absent in Mr. Schneiderman’s otherwise very fine virtuoso showmanship.

The Baroque strings (two violins, one cello, one viola) offered a lithe and jovial partnership with the soloist, most memorably in the burbling glissandi in Boccherini’s D-minor Guitar Quintet and in the finger-snapping fandango of the D-Major Quintet.  We were told one of the violins was a rare 1660 Guarneri made in Cremona, but the unflattering acoustics of the Beverly Hills church rendered all the strings sounding dry and acrid.  Walking out after the concert, and seeing the beautiful mansions lining Camden Drive, I could not help but surmise that any of those homes might have a great room with acoustics superior to the neighborhood church, and provide a more ideal, historically-authentic setting for these intimate drawing-room pieces for guitar and lute.

Musica Angelica returns to its home turf, the Zipper Hall, on December 1 to celebrate the holidays, 18^th Century-style.   Maybe the musicians will dress up in powdered wigs and period costumes.  But even if they don’t, it will still be great fun nonetheless.  

Order your tickets early at www.musicaangelica.org

- reviewed by Truman C. Wang

Haydn was well sung by the choir and a joy to hear. The soloists were Tamara Bevard, soprano; Farah Kidwai, alto; Daniel Chaney, tenor and Stephen Grimm, bass. Jeffrey Kahane of the LA Chamber Orchestra conducted the choir and instrumental ensemble. It seemed an evening doomed to problems with sound balance, the instruments often washing over the soloists. Regardless of this, Kahane conducted with brio.

The opening piece was performed by an ensemble of men from the Chorale. The music was a rhythmic chanting, punctuated by a large gong. The text is based on the Kanteletar . This ancient Finnish poetry originally published in 1840, was a written version of ancient folk poetry handed down through many generations. An eerie blend of Slavic and European based harmonies with a lively rhythmic chant underlying the melody gave it an aura that seemed both serene at the same time as it seemed urgent. The men's group sounded wonderful, but did not seem to be able to fill the hall with sound, as this piece almost demands.

Sandwiched in between the two tonal delicacies was the premiere of an evocative work by Louis Andriessen and commissioned by the Chorale. A decidedly dissonant piece, it provided an interesting contrast to the more tonal works it was layered between. The City of Dis or: The City of Fools, inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy, with texts from Das Narrenschiff, Psalm 107, and medieval Dutch sources. Beginning with a recording of street noises from a former student, Anke Brouwer, it developed from the noise into the music. Other sections of soundscape were used in the piece to suggest the sounds of "more than a thousand angels falling from heaven." This piece will eventually evolve into the opening act of his new opera, La Commedia set to premiere in Amsterdam early next summer.

The piece was not performed by the entire choir and was miked to rise above the instrumental ensemble, and sung by the smaller choir with a very straight tone. Deborah Mayhan as Beatrice stepped forward for a moment, but the balance of the solos came from within the choir and were not very easily understood. Miking a choir can often cause balance problems and they were evident here.The musicians who sang and played the difficult material to the best of their ability were inspiring and Grant Gershon did an amazing job of keeping it all together.

- reviewed by Dawn Southwick