The Catskill Chronicle

Review by Barry Plaxen

BETHEL, NY (November 13, 2013) – On November 10, local audiences were treated to a rare occurrence, thanks to the Shandelee Music Festival and Bethel Woods Center for the Arts.

For the last concert of its 20^th anniversary year, Shandelee Music Festival brought to Bethel a genre of music many people have never witnessed live: an afternoon of “middle” French Baroque music.

According to one online source, the middle period was 1654-1707, while another source says 1630-1680. Well-known middle period composers are: Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) an Italian in France, Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707) in Germany, Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) in Italy and Henry Purcell (1659-1695) in England.

Though early Baroque music is also rarely performed live in our area, audiences are well supplied with live performances of the great late Baroque composers, Vivaldi (1678-1741), Telemann (1681-1767), Rameau (1683-1764), Bach (1685-1750) and Handel (1685 -1759).

The middle Baroque period is defined by the emergence of melodies with short, cadential (cadences) ideas based on dance patterns. The harmonies were actually simpler than in the early Baroque era, when motets and madrigals had more complicated counterpoint and harmonies which were replaced by “accompanied recitative” in the middle period.

“The contribution of France to Baroque music was comparatively limited. The major influence which France did exert over the Baroque age was one of courtly opulence” (source unknown). And opulence is what was in evidence in Bethel.

Those responsible for the opulent, plush music of Michel Lambert (1610-1696), Jean-Baptiste Drouard de Bousset (1662-1725), Charles Dolle (c.1700-c.1755), and Antoine Forqueray (1671-(1745) were the ensemble’s director Andrew Arceci (photo at top of article), who played the melodies on viola da gamba while William Simms (photo above right) and Daniel Swenberg (photo below left) accompanied the gamba’s melodies on the theorbo (bass lute) and Baroque guitar.

The music by those composers consisted of short simple works, both instrumental and vocal. Making the softly-luxuriant music more animated and more immediate was Emily Noel (photo below), a soprano with a velvety voice/timbre and an accomplished vocal technique. The extra attraction of a great deal of charisma added to her communicative skills. The luscious vocal selections were the highlights of the afternoon for me.

The major works for the first and second halves of the concert were Suites by Marin Marais (1656-1728). Marais studied composition with Lully and is credited with being one of the earliest composers of program music. His “Bladder-Stone Operation” was performed as “The Gall-Bladder Operation” last year in South Fallsburg for the Chamber Music at St. Andrews series. (Urinary bladder surgery to remove stones was already a medical specialty in Paris in the 17th century).

Marias’ non-programmatic Suites at the Shandelee / Bethel concert consisted of numerous movements based on 17^th century (and earlier) dance forms. Today, he is considered the leading French composer for the gamba.

Elegance, delicacy, courtliness, dignity, nobility and gentility were the delights of the afternoon, thanks to Monsieur Marias and the aesthetically pleasing and tasteful musicians.

Thank you Shandelee and Bethel Woods for adding the middle Baroque period to the glorious musical experiences we find locally.