Press & Reviews
“Messiah” with Handelian size forces
December 14, 2009
This time of year, we hear Handel’s “Messiah” sung in
myriad venues with forces of all sizes and professional levels, but we rarely
hear it done as Handel himself was apt to hear it, as in its initial performance
in Dublin in 1742.
Thanks to The Tudor Choir and Seattle Baroque Orchestra who have joined once
more to perform it, we heard it again Saturday night as it might have been
performed then, and in a place, Town Hall, of somewhat similar size to the New
Music-Hall in Fishamble Street, Dublin.
Seattle Baroque opens its season with flair
OCTOBER 29, 2009
On hearing Seattle Baroque Orchestra’s season opening
concert at Town Hall Saturday night, my first thought was how well the group
sounds in here.
Although spotty in places, the acoustics are warm and with a reverberation which
enhances but leaves the sound clear. SBO has moved around a bit in its quest for
a good place to play. I hope it will remain here in what is a good pairing with
the hall. This season, Seattle Baroque will give one performance of each
program, and the hall was quite full.
December 22, 2008
Saturday night, while the snow was pouring radiantly from the skies, I joined 170 other intrepid souls to hear the Town Hall performance, in historically correct style, of Handel's Messiah. It was splendid, made a little more so by all the tribulations of pulling off a concert like this in weather like this. Bravo and thanks to Town Hall for such a wonderful Christmas present.
Seattle Baroque in a lively holiday ode to Cape Breton music
Monday, December 15, 2008
Cape Breton Island, at the northeastern tip of Nova Scotia,
was fought over by the French and the English: named by one, taken by the other.
Its musical life got a big boost in the 18th century when the Scottish Highlands
were cleared and a big migration of Gaelic Scots settled there.
The geographical and historical mysteries of Cape Breton were not entirely
cleared up at the weekend concert of the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, but the
lively portrayal of "A Cape Breton Christmas" in Nordstrom Recital Hall left the
audience enjoying the music for its own sake.
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Concert review: Seattle Baroque Orchestra paints beautiful "Portrait"
Stephen Stubbs, the returned prodigal light of the Seattle early music scene,
leads Seattle Baroque Orchestra's beautiful "Portrait of a Baroque Diva."
JOHN SUTHERLAND, SEATTLE TIMES MUSIC CRITIC
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2008
The Seattle Baroque Orchestra launched its 2008-09 season into brave new territory this past weekend. It is spending the year without music director Ingrid Matthews, who is taking a season-long sabbatical before returning in 2009.
Fortunately, the series of international guest artists
scheduled to lead the concerts this season is nothing short of dynamite. And
perhaps it is most appropriate that the first concert was led by someone who can
be considered both an international star and a local boy.
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Seattle Baroque ends season on comic note
Sunday, April 13, 2008
The Seattle Baroque Orchestra, which closed its season this weekend, has had
a year of superb, invigorating programs, encompassing 17th-century songs, a jazz
collaboration, Handel's "Messiah" at Town Hall and music tied together by its
use of similar bass-line patterns, or ground bass.
Saturday night at Nordstrom Recital Hall was one of its most stimulating,
enlightening and fun programs with a comic opera, "La serva padrona," by
Giovanni Pergolesi.
It was framed by two instrumental pieces of Telemann and Johann Gottlieb Graun,
a generation younger than Telemann.
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Even Town Hall shone in 'Messiah'
Monday, december 23, 2007
Handel's "Messiah" is one of the most durable works of music ever composed. It can tolerate the worst of performances and shines with the best. Whether one is speaking of its counterpoint, dramatic contrasts or sheer tunefulness, its genius wins the day.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Seven short, flowing movements had strings often creating washes of color with one or another instrument coming to the fore, with the tar, played by Koushkani, most prominent. Highly expressive, the tar is played with tremolo like a cembalum, its tone in shades between nasal and twangy, and the mood changed from peaceful to restive, emotional to mournful. At the end, the audience surged to its feet and roared approval.
Evoking 18th-century Persia with new work for baroque orchestra
Friday, October 13, 2006
Two things you might not expect on a Seattle Baroque Orchestra program: a contemporary work and an Iranian tar. You'll find both in this weekend's pair of Seattle Baroque Orchestra concerts, at 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday in the Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall.
Schenkman bows out with Vivaldi program
Monday, April 24, 2006
The Seattle Baroque Orchestra opened its weekend of performances on both sides of Lake Washington with a smile and cheery manner.
Surviving chamber groups are aware of the risks
Thursday, March 23, 2006
The chamber orchestra falls into a risky niche in the classical music world.
Orchestra makes the best of an unexpected situation
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Matthews and Fogarty, in true trouper style, took the lead in describing the works in ways both amusing and immediate, so that they were connected to today's pop songs and the human condition when in love. And perhaps more than they would have otherwise, the three singers, often strumming Baroque guitars, acted out their songs with flashing eyes and eloquent gestures, drawing the audience in.
Seattle Baroque Orchestra celebrates Christmas with Bach
Friday, December 16, 2005
What marks Bach's Christmas music? "Joy," in a word, according to Matthews. "Whether the music is rousing or extroverted or tender, it is soulful. There is an expression of joy and contentment unmatched in the literature."
There's something new on the Seattle Baroque Orchestra bill
Friday, October 21, 2005
Seattle composer Peter Seibert, who with his wife, Ellen, is an icon in the early music scene in Seattle, is contributing "Sonata for String Orchestra." The sonata was commissioned by a patron of the orchestra, David Chui, in honor of his father, Hak-kun James Tsi of Hong Kong. The thematic material of the short work is based on the vowels of his name matched with symbols of a French system of ear training called solfege. The music is in part contrapuntal and three-voice canon.
Something old, something new from Seattle Baroque Orchestra
Friday, October 21, 2005
Can it be? The Seattle Baroque Orchestra, playing a world premiere? The region's most established early-instruments orchestra, stepping up to the 21st century? Yes, it is true.
Abundant pleasures from ensemble
Monday, December 20, 2004
Schenkman offered three at the end of the first half and played them with suitable charm and finesse. These small but extraordinary works rarely fail to be engaging, provided their proponent is engaging. Schenkman did not prove to be otherwise.
Chamber-size ensemble unwraps orchestral gem
Concertmaster Ingrid Matthews is another star. This excellence is continued through the strings and winds. With taste and style, the musicians shaped phrases and blended all sorts of interesting musical textures, as in an aria from Bach's Cantata BWV 121, where the organ and harpsichord artfully alternated and combined in various sections.