Handel and Telemann rarities slated for Music of the Baroque’s 2016-17 season
Music of the Baroque’s 2016-17 season will offer two large-scale rarities amid its characteristic mix of music by Bach, Handel, Mozart and Vivaldi.
Nicholas Kraemer will open the season October 23-24 with Handel’s sprawling Alexander’s Feast on a program that also includes the Handel Harp Concerto that was performed at the ode’s premiere. Kramer also leads a mixed Baroque lineup February 26-27 of Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in E flat (La Tempesta di Mare), Handel’s Concerto grosso in D minor, and shorter works by Telemann, Locke, Rameau, and Muffat.
Jane Glover leads the first of her four programs November 20-21 with a Bach family program featuring a J.S. Bach violin concerto (work and soloist TBA) and C.P.E. Bach’s Flute Concerto in B flat, performed by Mary Stolper.
Glover will also direct performances of Mozart’s “Great” Mass in C minor January 22-23 on a program that includes Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture, as well as Susanna Phillips in Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate. Glover is on the podium for a Mozart-Haydn program April 23-24 with piano soloist Imogen Cooper.
MOB’s music director will conclude the season May 14-15 with Telemann’s The Day of Judgment, marking the 250th anniversary of Telemann’s death and the first MOB performance of the vast oratorio in 25 years.
Tenor-conductor Paul Agnew will lead the popular holiday brass and choral concerts (Dec. 15-18), and chorus master William Jon Gray conducts a program that includes Vivaldi’s Magnificat and Bach’s rarely heard Mass in F major March 26-27.
baroque.org; 312-551-1414.
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Posted Mar 10, 2016 at 12:01 pm by Roland Buck
One can make a good case for a modern instrument baroque orchestra extending its repertoire forward into the classical period of the second half of the 18th century. Therefore including works by J.C. Bach and Karl Phillip Emanuel Bach, which are early classical, and not baroque is fully justified.
But if they include a piano concerto by Mozart, they should at least perform it on an 18th century vintage fortepiano, like Mozart played on, and include the continuo part. That brings something to the performance that the Chicago Symphony does not. Playing the concerto on a modern piano results in MOB needlessly duplicating the repertoire of the Chicago Symphony. And there can be no justification for including a romantic era work by Beethoven, which is two generations away from Baroque music.