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Review
Les Délices: La Guitarre Royale at Tregoning & Co. (February 12)

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by William Fazekas

The popular image of the Lover's Serenade — whether Don Giovanni or 1960's folk singer — is beneath the Beloved's window, strumming on a guitar. So it is fitting that, this Valentine's weekend, oboist Debra Nagy and her ensemble Les Délices gave us a serenade of works from the French Baroque entitled "La Guitarre Royalle." For this Ms. Nagy and her usual Délicians — violinist Scott Metcalfe and viola da gambist Emily Walhout — were joined by the Toronto-based guitarist Lucas Harris. Of the two performances, we heard the first, on Saturday evening, at Tregoning and Co. Gallery on the western edge of Cleveland's bustling Gordon Square neighborhood.

The opening work on the program, "La Junon" by Jean-Féry Rebel, gave a good illustration of the ensemble's sound in general. Replacing the usual continuo harpsichord with a finger-plucked string instrument (here Mr. Harris played the guitar's steroid-fed second cousin, the theorbo) resulted in a sound that was softer, more hazy — shaded pastels rather than pen-and-ink drawing. The work, basically a Corellian trio-sonata, begins with a slow movement characterized by descending melodic lines, followed by a succession of faster, more contrapuntal movements. Both Mr. Metcalfe and Ms. Nagy are lyrical players, whose sense of balance and blend bespeaks a firm and comfortable musical partnership.

The tone-color of an oboe is bound to dominate an ensemble otherwise composed of (bowed or plucked) strings; but Ms. Nagy comes off as a music director less ego-driven than many, and has no problems exiting the stage and allowing the other performers to take center. Thus Ms. Walhout gave us "La Guitare," a character-piece by the gamba-virtuoso Marin Marais. Mr. Harris accompanied, although Marais's depiction of the guitar was so successful that having a real guitar seemed over-kill. Ms. Walhout seemed to find the music especially in the work's silences: hesitations before phrases, and unexpected and complete rests before the final cadences.

The instrumental star of the evening was the Baroque guitar, borrowed from Oberlin College, on which Mr. Harris played two sets of dances from Francesco Corbetta's two collections, each entitled La Guitare Royalle. Each of the works presented was essentially a set of variations on a repeating chordal pattern (a common form of much dance music of the age), although the "Caprice de Chaconne" strayed into some rather new-age sounding harmonic realms. One cannot envision a more subtle, intimate music: the slightly sibilant brush of fingernails on strummed chords, contrasting with the delicate, bell-like tones of plucked notes in the melody, kept the audience breathless.

For the evening's centerpiece, and as a nod to Valentine's Day, the full ensemble reconvened for François Couperin's Il Rittrato dell'Amore ("the Portrait of Love"), the ninth work in his collection Les Goûts Réunis. This "reunification" of French and Italian styles was a particular preoccupation of Couperin (as well as of Ms. Nagy — it is the subject of Les Délices's premier CD): although the work is titled in Italian, the movements are given French subtitles, each depicting a characteristic of Love (or the Beloved): "Vivacity," "Sweetness," "Noble Pride," and finally — anticipating e. e. cummings's poem — his/her "Et Cetera." Il Rittrato was written in E major, and in two parts, with the typically Baroque indifference to instrumentation. For this evening's performance, Ms. Nagy transposed the work down to D major, apparently a more congenial key for the instruments present, and composed a third part, which comprised much of Mr. Metcalfe's role in the work. She defended this on historical grounds, but the pleasing result was the only justification necessary.

Mr. Metcalfe had a solo turn in L'Impromptu by Louis-Nicholas Clérambault, again a Corellian succession of slow and fast movements. Mr. Metcalfe's playing is nimble and almost conversational — fleeting facial expressions give the illusion that the violin line is an extension of his voice, with the inflections and phrasing of spoken language. To conclude the evening, the full ensemble assembled once more — with Mr. Harris on guitar and Ms. Nagy on recorder — for a suite of French country dances (albeit with some sophisticated fugal counterpoint no paysan would have known) by Joseph Bodin de Boismortier.

The performers played from a corner in the gallery, visible to all the audience, who were nevertheless separated from one another by a large partition. The heat and lack of humidity in the room was merely uncomfortable to the ninety or so persons in the audience, but down-right problematic for the performers: Ms. Nagy dropped out of the Rebel momentarily as a result of a collapsed reed. Colorful abstract canvases by Frank Herrmann graced the walls, and afterwards the audience was treated to a wine-and-cheese reception (with better quality cheese than is usual at these affairs.)

 

 

 

 

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