Reviving the Baroque in Corona del Mar

The 33rd annual festival will feature an opera by Handel, a concerto for viola d’amore and other rare works.


Reviving the Baroque in Corona del Mar

Violinist Elzabeth Blumenstock.

Baroque Music Festival, Corona del Mar

Where: Various venues

When: 4 p.m. June 16; 8 p.m. June 17, 19 and 21; 4 p.m. June 23

How much: $20-$45

Call: 949-760-7887

Online: www.bmf-cdm.org

Men and women attending the oversold 1742 premiere of Handel's "Messiah" had to leave their swords and hooped dresses at home to maximize seating. Welcome to the Baroque era of early music. If only such charming historical details revealed what the music they heard actually sounded like.

How well in tune did the musicians play? Did they bow in the same direction? How extreme were their articulations, dynamics and inflections?

At least since Mendelssohn's Bach revival in 1829, several early-music movements have tried to provide answers. However, without a time machine, or at least a recording, informed speculation prevails.

When the Baroque Music Festival, Corona del Mar, begins its 33rd season on June 16 at St. Mark Presbyterian Church, the festival's new artistic director, violinist Elizabeth Blumenstock, hopes to bring audiences as close as possible to the spirit of the early-music experience.

The festival's former concertmaster, Blumenstock has been a member of the San Francisco-based period-instrument Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra since 1981. She takes over from conductor Burton Karson, who retired from the festival in 2011 after leading it for 30 years.

The five concerts programmed by Blumenstock include Baroque concertos by Scarlatti, Telemann, Vivaldi, and others, performed on period instruments or replicas (June 16); an organ recital featuring soloist Ian Pritchard (June 17); an evening of scenes from Handel's opera "Orlando," along with pieces for countertenor and chamber ensemble (June 19); and a celebration of chamber music from the Italian Baroque, including works by Brescianello and Locatelli (June 21).

The festival's opera finale on June 23 at the Newport Harbor Lutheran Church features a full concert performance of Handel's "Acis and Galatea." The score, given its premiere in the summer of 1718, remains one of the composer's most popular dramatic works.

"I'm exclusively a 17th- and 18th-century girl," Blumenstock said by phone, during a break in rehearsals. "When I heard the period-instrument Bach cantatas in the early 1970s, I was floored by how expressive they were. They were not like the heavy, slow and homogenized versions I grew up with."

Ironically, Baroque music was first revived by Classical and Romantic composers. Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schumann – all of them revered and studied Bach. But the compositional and expressive approach of each style, Blumenstock noted, is different.

"Romantic music is painterly, with long passages, melodies and phrases," she said. "Baroque music communicates on a more speech-like level."

Blumenstock, who plays a 1660 Guarneri violin, spoke of the Baroque bow as an "expressive little tool that tends to dance off the string," she said. "I'm a bit of a purist. The equipment is integrally related to the art produced. It's wise to keep them together."

Most string players are trained to produce a big, Romantic-style sound, with liberal use of the emotive vibration of the strings, known as vibrato. But Blumenstock said a "warm, juicy vibrato" doesn't fit the Baroque aesthetic.

Blumenstock said she uses some vibrato, but more as an ornament, which is how it was considered in the Baroque era. That doesn't mean Baroque music can't be as emotional and angst-ridden as Romantic era music.

"Bach was really good at guilt," she said. "He was an incredible exponent of religious emotion, who reliably moves atheists. There's no lack of virtuosity and speed, but the aim of Baroque music is to move listeners – peace, anger, intense hatred, fear, love, guilt – basic feelings."

For speed and dazzle, Blumenstock leads the Festival orchestra from her violin in Vivaldi's Concerto for Two Cellos, RV 531, on the first program. "It's a stunning, rompin', stompin' piece," she said.


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