Chicago Classical Review

Few, if any, movers and shakers among the international early music brigade are better qualified to lead as engrossing a foray into the bounteous repertory of Italian late Baroque and early Classical instrumental works as guest conductor Fabio Biondi provided with Music of the Baroque Monday at Chicago’s Harris Theater.

Although the admired Italian violinist and conductor was making his MOB debut, he is no stranger to Chicago audiences. Biondi’s performances here with his period ensemble Europa Galante in 2010 and 2012, also as guest maestro with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2017, were notable for the stylistic authority with which he moves between the worlds of period and modern performance.

So it was on Monday, when Biondi and his MOB colleagues traced the transformation of the violin as a leading instrument of musical expression over several generations of Italian instrumental music, from familiar figures such as Arcangelo Corelli and Antonio Vivaldi to lesser-known composers like Giovanni Sammartini and Gaetano Pugnani.

What began as a voice of genteel conversation within the Baroque concerto grosso, we learned, took on ever more prominent virtuosity before assuming its dominant role in the early Classical symphony.

Directing from the violin at a small podium situated to the left of Stephen Alltop’s harpsichord, Biondi drew from the 16-piece string ensemble readings as crisply engaged, and engaging, as his own solo playing in concertos by Vivaldi and Pietro Nardini.

It was Corelli who in many ways led the way for his Italian successors. His Concerto Grosso in B-flat (Op. 6, no. 11) wears its craftsmanship with unaffected grace, a quality that emerged in the spirited interaction between Monday’s concertino and ripieno groups. Biondi was especially good at finessing the various accelerations and relaxations within a seamless line.

A virtuoso violinist as well as composer, Francesco Geminiani pushed his teacher Corelli’s manner in a more deeply expressive direction with his Concerto Grosso in D Minor, based on Corelli’s solo-violin La Follia. The iconic tune is subjected to an elaborate series of ornate variations that tested the fine-tuned brilliance of Monday’s performers at sometimes headlong tempos.

One could hear early Haydn and Mozart in embryonic form in symphonies by Sammartini and Pugnani.

The former composer’s Symphony No. 6 in F Major was perhaps the program’s choicest discovery. Beyond enforcing subtle dynamic contrasts in the central Andante, Biondi made certain his listeners caught various touches of proto-Haydn wit, such as the false phrase endings.   

With Pugnani’s Sinfonia in B-flat Major we were firmly into the early Classical era of Italian music, the violin fully integrated into a cohesive symphonic texture. Monday’s lucid and alert performance revealed a forward-looking degree of chromaticism in the melodic writing.

Even so, it was Vivaldi who transformed violin music well beyond the Corelli model.

Biondi began the evening with a Vivaldi string concerto in G minor (RV 152), later joining MOB concertmaster Gina DiBello for a spirited account of Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Violins in G minor (RV 517). The well-matched soloists dialogued, and sometimes competed, with the ease of star violinists long accustomed to working with each other rather than for only a week.

More solo Biondi came with Nardini’s first published opus, his Violin Concerto in A Major. Here he proved himself as accomplished at shaping a florid fiddle line as he was at guiding the ensemble through their lively musical conversation. A sprightly finale capped things off with a winning flourish.

Music of the Baroque will conclude its season with a choral program, “Celestial Voices,” May 17 in Winnetka and May 18 in Chicago. baroque.org

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