THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 26, 1995 TAG: 9503260255
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Music review
SOURCE: BY MARK MOBLEY, MUSIC CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
The early music ensemble Capriole performs in Norfolk just three times each year. But those concerts are enough to make it an important local asset.
The Williamsburg-based group completed its season Saturday at Old Dominion University with ``The Generation Before J.S. Bach,'' a program of German cantatas. Soprano Susanne Peck, countertenor Stephen Rickards and Baroque violinist Ryan Brown were the featured guests in an evening with sublime vocal and instrumental touches.
Capriole's approach to Renaissance and Baroque music is intimate and vivid.
Under artistic director and harpsichordist Gayle Johnson, inspired performances are the rule, not the exception.
The most memorable moments of this program were in the first half, in dark, rich pieces by Heinrich Schuetz and Johann Christoph Bach (a cousin of J.S. Bach's father).
Peck sang with a lovely, relaxed sound in Schuetz' ``Wohl dem, der nicht wandelt'' (Blessed is he who goes not) and a remarkable Johann Christoph Bach paraphrase of the ``Song of Solomon.''
This work, a chaconne with a huge violin part, could serve modern-instrument performers well. Brown, a fine player, strove mightily for every nuance but pushed the prevailing tempo and thus skimmed over the unfolding glory of the form.
Because of a slight illness, Rickards sounded like he was working harder than Peck, but he still managed some compelling effects. He caressed the opening lines of a Schuetz cantata with three violas da gamba also drawn from the ``Song of Solomon.''
He and the ensemble were evocative in the powerfully expressive harmonies of J.C. Bach's ``Ach, das ich Wassers genug haette'' (O, that I had water enough).
In the second half, the Old Dominion University Madrigal Singers were heard in works by Johann Michael Bach and Dietrich Buxtehude.
The young voices sounded more convincing in the lively passages of Buxtehude's ``Eins bitte ich vom Herrn'' (I ask the Lord) than in the restrained Johann Michael Bach work.
The program was not as long as some that Johnson has concocted, but the uneven playing in a Sonata for Three Violins by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer made its inclusion debatable. by CNB