PBO’s Third Candidate Music Director

Conductor Peter Whelan on the banner for the PBO Web page for Alceste

Last night’s performance by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale continued the search for its next Music Director by a concert-based-audition of its third candidate, Peter Whelan. The candidate is currently the Artistic Director of the Irish Baroque Orchestra and Curator for Early Music for the Norwegian Wind Ensemble. The program he prepared consisted entirely of music by George Frideric Handel. This consisted primarily of the HWV 45 incidental music composed for Tobias Smollett’s play Alceste, which was preceded by an “overture” of sorts in the form of HWV 319, the first of the Opus 6 concerti grossi, composed in the key of G major. The vocal soloists for HWV 45 included two members of the Philharmonia Chorale, mezzo Leandra Ramm and baritone Jeffrey Fields joined by visiting artists Lauren Snouffer (soprano) and tenor Aaron Sheehan. As usual, the Chorale was led by Valérie Sainte-Agathe.

I am not sure why Whelan decided that the orchestra should perform the concerto grosso while standing. If he thought it would provide a more focused delivery, then he definitely did not succeed. For the most part, phrasing came across as disconcertingly scrappy, almost as if the players wanted their leader to know that they were more focused when seated. However, scrappiness was only one of the problems. The more serious difficulty was a disappointingly poor account of intonation across the entire ensemble.

Fortunately, the orchestra was seated for HWV 45. Nevertheless, problems of scrappiness remained, now invading the Chorale as well as the Orchestra. Even one of the vocal soloists, Fields, seemed to be having problems aligning his sonorities with those of the instrumental ensemble. It remains to be seen whether those problems involved poorly-prepared rehearsals or lack of communication once the conductor arrived. Whatever the case may have been, this was one of my most disappointing PBO encounters with both vocalists and instrumentalists.