Tempesta di Mare's tenth birthday bash

Tempesta di Mare, Philadelphia's Baroque orchestra, celebrated its tenth anniversary with a program that opened with a fanfare for the Ark of the Covenant and ended with a ballet suite toasting France's only victorious battle during the 18th Century.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's Fanfare for the Ark opened the fête with three Baroque natural trumpets in full voice, boosted by Michelle Humphrey's resonant work on the tympani. Horns, reed and strings then joined the trumpets and timpani for an overture by Johann Friedrich Fasch that maintained the pace and volume.

The opening of the Fasch provided a salutary reminder that 27 Baroque instruments can deliver a totally satisfying blast when they play in a hall comparable to the halls actually used in the Baroque era. The individual instruments may be quieter than modern instruments, but a full-size Baroque orchestra fits the scale of a venue like the Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church.

The Fasch revival has been one of Tempesta's major projects, and this overture contained the special touches— such as unusual blends of string, oboes and bassoons— that characterize Fasch's work. The finale was a strongly accented march for the whole orchestra, with every instrument once again going full blast.

The trumpets and tympani took a break during the third item, a William Boyce Symphony in A originally composed as part of a birthday ode to George II. The flutes joined the party for a piece that created most of its effects with grace and speed.

Vivaldi's demands

Vivaldi's Concerto for Four Violins, the first half finale, wasn't created as a celebration piece but can be considered a celebration of music and musicianship. It contains some of Vivaldi's liveliest music, and the four soloists all got moments when they could step into the spotlight and display their skill.

A live performance of the Vivaldi concerto is a display of high-level teamwork. Vivaldi keeps varying the combinations: One minute the second and third violinists may be playing together. A moment later you may see all four soloists playing different lines simultaneously, followed by a solo by the first violin, followed by a passage in which the fourth violin takes the center of attention as she plays with the two violists in the orchestra.

The four soloists for this performance— concertmaster Emlyn Ngai, principal second violin Karina Fox, and their colleagues Fran Berge and Rebecca Harris— performed all these feats of coordination Baroque style— that is, without a conductor— which must be the musical equivalent of doing high-wire acrobatics without a net.

Battle allegory

The second half opened with a lively short piece by Fasch that Tempesta di Mare premiered in 2008. It was mostly notable for the evocative horn passages played by Todd Williams and Aleks Ozolins, but it also includes winning sections for strings and rippling winds.

Now, about that French battle victory. The French army lost so many battles during the 18th Century that it seems to have existed mostly so Britain could add a few victories to its military laurels. The only significant exception is the battle of Fontenoy, fought in 1745 during the War of the Austrian Succession. (Napoleon's early battles don't count, because, as all historians understand, the 18th Century ended in 1789 with the onset of the French Revolution.) Rameau's Les Fêtes de Polymnie celebrated the French triumph with a complicated allegorical stage work.

Rameau's suite from the stage production ended Tempesta's party with a lengthy banquet of courtly pleasure music. Its charms included more outbursts from the trumpets and tympani; some tricky passages in which flutists Gwyn Roberts and Eva Friedman produced long, shrieking flute notes that had to be coordinated with Ngai's violin; unexpected effects like passages for the oboe that ended with little slides on Ngai's violin; and a driving, darkly thrumming processional for the whole orchestra that suggested the Turkish rhythms later popularized by Beethoven and other composers.

Would that we could all celebrate our birthdays in such style.