Vinikour turns the small dances into sparkling treasures

Photo credit: Lisa Mazzucco

Sounding advances

Handel soloists

It doesn't always have to be a deal. At the festival concert in the sold-out Great House of the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, only four of the four pieces on the program were from the namesake of the German Handel Soloists, who once again proved themselves to be rousing performers of early music. The evening was held together by the amiable and competent moderator Michael Fichtenholz, who as artistic director of the Handel Festival was responsible for putting together the offer.

After all, the evening started with a Handel work. The overture and ballet music from his first Italian opera “Rodrigo” (1707) shows the young Handel at the beginning of his career. Conductor Jory Vinikour turns the small dances into sparkling treasures, sparked a pointed swing in the spirited Matelot and set colorful accents between the ensemble and the striking solo violin (Andrea Keller) in the Passacaglia.

Another first opera is “Hippolyte et Aricie” by Jean-Philippe Rameau; only when the composer wrote the work in 1733 was already famous and 50 years old. The magical bravura aria of the nightingales in love (“Rossignols amoureux”), with the delicate interplay of solo singing, which was unfortunately taken over by a violin, and instrumentally imitated bird sounds, was particularly appealing in the selected pieces.

After the break, compositions by the Bach family followed. Fichtenholz also had a charming explanation for this: “What is nicer than Bach's Brandenburg concerts? Maybe Handel. ” First, however, was the harpsichord concerto in D major by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, the oldest and probably the most important, although not the most successful son of the Thomas Cantor. The work, which in addition to the baroque tradition already refers to the more sensitive melody of the pre-classes, gave the internationally celebrated harpsichord virtuoso Vinikour a rich opportunity to develop his art on the instrument.

Vinikour was also breathtaking in the extensive, incredibly difficult harpsichord part in Father Bach's 5th Brandenburg Concerto, which is rightly considered the first real harpsichord concert in music history. Together with Susanne Kaiser (flute) and Andrea Keller (violin), the animated Handel soloists, led by the energetic Vinikour, made the popular baroque classic a revelatory feast.

The ensemble thanked for the enthusiastic applause with a Handel encore: a ballet piece from “Radamisto”. And as the hair-raising highlight of musical mastery like perfect dexterity, Vinikour shook a harpsichord sonata by Domenico Scarlatti out of his sleeve.

—BADISCHE NEUESTE NACHRICHTEN