PBO’s Evening of Disappointing Excess

Cello soloist Keiran Campbell (courtesy of PBO)

Last night in Herbst Theatre the instrumentalists of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale (PBO) presented the second of the six concerts planned for its 2021/22 concert season. The ensemble was led from the harpsichord by guest conductor Jonathan Cohen. Cellist Keiran Campbell appeared as guest soloist, and the program included the world premiere performance of “Giving Ground,” composed by Paul Stanhope.

The title of the program was Something Old, Something New, Something Mad. While it provided an accurate account of the diverse selections on the program, it also served as an omen for a presentation so tedious that it made the usual two-hour duration feel as if it went on forever. In fact the program consisted of ten selections, five on either side of the intermission; but there was so little spirit in the performances that the entire evening quickly began to feel like an eternal slog.

One problem may be that the resources were too heavy for the music being performed. Mind you, the overall scale of the ensemble was about what one would expect of PBO: ten violins divided equally between firsts and seconds, four violas, three cellos, and one bass, along with David Tayler on theorbo, Hanneke van Proosdij organ, and Cohen behind his harpsichord. However, by the time the intermission rolled around, I realized that I had been reflecting on the clarity that Voices of Music could deliver with an ensemble that was half the size with far more engaging transparency.

The gathering together of old, new, and mad emerged at the end of the program with “Giving Ground.” The title served as a nod to “La Folia,” which I have previously described as “one of the most famous ground bass lines.” Stanhope decided that the best way to confront such familiarity was by going cryptic. The result yielded the sort of opacity that can only be negotiated after mind has encountered several performances, after which one begins to become aware of what the shapes are and how they interact. Sadly, because this was the penultimate work on the program, I suspect that most of the minds in the audience were too fatigued to deal with this “first contact.” Fortunately, the program concluded with a much more familiar “La Folia” composition, Francesco Geminiani’s “La Folia” concerto grosso, which was basically an arrangement of the last of Arcangelo Corelli’s twelve violin sonatas.

Fortunately, the evening had a high point, which gloriously soared above all the other selections. This was Campbell’s performance of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Wq 172 cello concerto in A major. Those familiar with “Bach the son” are probably familiar with his preference for vigorous rhetorical stances. That vigor emerged in generous supply in the outer movements and even worked its way into the technical demands of the slower middle movement. Campbell clearly enjoyed presenting a performance guided by all of Bach’s rhetorical twists and turns, and the skill with which he negotiated all those technical demands was never short of downright awesome.

Had the rest of the evening reflected that engaging partnership of soloist, music, and conductor, the experience would have been more satisfying than a laundry list of old, new, and mad.