January 12, 2002 – Review

Classical review, Ars Antigua at Quigley Chapel

By John von Rhein
Reprinted from the Chicago Tribune

The flurry of holiday “Messiah” performances may be safely behind us, but Handel remains a vital presence in our musical life. The Chicago early music group Ars Antigua gave the local premiere of a “new” Handel discovery, his “Gloria” for soprano, violins and bass, as part of an enterprising concert of Baroque instrumental and vocal works Saturday in the Quigley Chapel of St. James Cathedral at Rush and Pearson Streets.

When the manuscript of the “Gloria” — not in the composer’s hand but bound in a collection of Handel arias left to Britain’s Royal Academy of Music in the early 19th Century — was unearthed in London in March 2001, it set the scholarly world abuzz. Here was an undisputedly authentic piece by the young Handel, probably written in Germany before his departure for Italy, full of youthful elan and brimming with invention. No wonder the composer later borrowed parts of the Gloria for use in other contexts.

How this major piece — eight short movements totaling about 18 minutes — could have gathered archival dust this long is unclear, since musicologists had known of its existence since the early 1980s. In any case, Handel’s “Gloria” has quickly entered the repertory of various Baroque groups and has already found its way onto two recordings.

Compared to the rather plushy forces heard on both the BIS and Philips discs, Ars Antigua used a bare-bones instrumentation — two violins and continuo consisting of cello, double bass and harpsichord. But the scoring that director Jerry Fuller and friends adopted on Saturday felt right for the small size and resonant acoustics of the room and provided a sturdy but never overwhelming foundation for the vocal part as sung by soprano Linda Dayiantis-Straub.

When presented in such an intimate scale and setting, the “Gloria” hardly requires a conductor, and none was used for this performance. Once past some initial flatness of pitch, Dayiantis-Straub floated the florid lines with abundant coloratura technique and musicianship. The poise and radiance of her singing were especially apt for the glittering 16th-note runs of “Quoniam tu solus.” The instrumentalists meshed alertly with the soloist and one another. Saturday’s capable roster consisted of Patricia Ahern and Jin Kim, violins; Pablo Mahave-Veglia, cello; Andrew Fredel, harpsichord; and Fuller, double bass.

More Baroque discoveries shared the program, which was given as part of the church’s free Saturday-afternoon concert series to raise money for the restoration of the chapel’s exquisite stained-glass windows. Along with a French cantata by Michel Pignolet de Monteclair, there was a solo violin passacaglia by Heinrich Biber, a sonata for recorder and violone by Francesco Barsanti and J.S. Bach’s Trio Sonata for violin, flute and continuo, BWV 1039.

The Monteclair cantata, “The Triumph of Constancy,” in which a spurned lover resolves to remain constant despite everything, was sung with limpid grace by soprano Amy Conn, who was ably assisted by Craig Trompeter, viola da gamba, and Doug Schneider, harpsichord. Anita Miller Rieder, flute, and Patrick O’Malley, recorder, also made distinguished contributions, although the soft timbre of Miller Rieder’s transverse flute was somewhat overbalanced by her colleagues in the Bach sonata.

You can hear additional stylish Baroque playing by Fuller and his period instrumentalists on their latest CD, a collection of Telemann sonatas on the Musical Arts Society label, available through the group’s Web site, www.ArsAntigua.net.