PBO: a Coffee Break in the Financial District

As was reported at the end of last month, this morning saw a “preview” performance by eight musicians in the string section of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (PBO). This was a “double string quartet,” whose members were violinists Kati Kyme, Maxine Nemerovski, Noah Strick, and Aaron Westman, violists Maria Caswell and Anna Washburn, and cellists Laura Gaynon and William Skeen, the latter doubling as Master of Ceremonies. The top of the program proclaimed (in a large type font) “Freshly Brewed Baroque;” but Skeen gave the audience a more appropriate overall title:  A Leipzig Lineage: 1615–1845. In other words, the program consisted entirely of music that had been performed in Leipzig over that span of 30 years.

The Flute Concert of Sanssouci, a painting by Adolph von Menzel depicting Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach accompanying Frederick the Great playing the flute (from the Wikipedia Web page for BWV 1079)

The composer most usually associated with Leipzig is Johann Sebastian Bach. His contribution to the program was the “Ricercar a 6,” the six-voice fugue in Bach’s BWV 1079, given the title The Musical Offering. (The “offering” was made by Bach to Frederick the Great, King Frederick II of Prussia.) This was coupled by the selection for Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the H 661 fifth of the six symphonies given the collective title Hamburger Sinfonien. This father-son coupling was preceded by two earlier composers. The program began with the “Canzon à 6,” one of the selections in a 1609 collection of 25 pieces composed by Johann Hermann Schein. This was followed by an instrumental arrangement of the Advent hymn “Nun komm der Heiden Heiland” by Johann Schelle.

The program then concluded with two selections from the nineteenth century. The first of these was a prelude-fugue coupling by Clara Schumann from her Opus 16 set of solo piano compositions, transcribed for a quartet of the PBO musicians: Kyme, Westman, Caswell, and Skeen. Finally, all eight musicians joined forces for the Finale movement of the Opus 20 octet in E major composed by Felix Mendelssohn.

The entire program was thus a journey from the late sixteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth. This was an impressive undertaking, but no selection on the program ever overstayed its welcome. The program suggested that this was a “coffee break” event; but there was so much offered by the program that I never felt a need for caffeine to prompt my attention!