MICHAEL DERVANreviews IBO/Huggett at the National Gallery, Dublin
Bach – Brandenburg Concerto No 3.
Vivaldi – Violin Concerto in G minor RV332.
Handel – Concerto Grosso in B flat Op 3 No 2. Vivaldi – Summer.
Compositional ingenuity is highly prized and rightly so. The third of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos is written for just 10 instruments – three each of violins, violas and cellos, plus double bass. But Bach deploys the instruments with an extraordinary fluidity, so that with each group playing its own part he can conjure up an orchestral richness, and yet any individual group or instrument within a group can fly off for a solo run.
In 21st-century terms, it's like a high-tech computer graphic that can morph from birds into foliage into something as solid as a building and back again, without appearing to betray the character of its basic elements. And it's all brought off with such skill that you don't need to grasp the complexity to enjoy what's going on.
At the National Gallery, Monica Huggett directed the Irish Baroque Orchestra in a performance that was perfectly lit. Nothing in the ever-changing textures disappeared from view. The spring of the opening movement had a delightful, easy, outdoor energy. The punchier bass line of the finale was driven with irrepressible spirit.
The two violin concertos from Vivaldi's Op 8 both featured Huggett as a soloist who seemed to want to give the impression of almost, but not quite, surmounting the impossible. She seemed to thrive on the idea of testing her own limits, as well as those of the music, thrusting herself with enthusiasm into areas where strain was bound to show. The unsurmounted challenges in the finales of the two concertos – the second of them being Summer from The Four Seasons – were at times stressful to listen to, as well as exciting.
The playing of Handel's Concerto Grosso in G B flat, Op 3 No 2, was, by comparison, more circumspect, still sprightly in the fast movements, well sustained in the slower music, and with lovely solo turns from the oboes. The IBO's Masterworks series continues tomorrow at 7pm
