stablished as a forum to perform ancient music, The Academy of Ancient Music was formed in the early 1700s. The date it disbanded is unknown, but in 1973 a chap by the name of Christopher Hogwood refounded the once lost and ancient academy. Since the refounding, The Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) has been known for reputable recordings and performances of Baroque, classical and early Romantic-period music.

Associate conductor and world class violinist Andrew Manze has led the AAM in collaboration with talented artists such as vocalist Cecilia Bartoli and pianist Robert Levin. They have also expanded their repertoire to include newly commissioned works by living composers such as John Tavener and John Woolrich. They have recorded all of the Beethoven symphonies and piano concertos, all of the Mozart symphonies and are presently working on a complete set of the Haydn symphonies.

Interestingly enough, with all of their performing and recording, they play the works on “period instruments.” One may ask, what is a period instrument? Well, in our day that would be too many guitars and too many raspy meaningful(less) voices. In Handel’s day, there were gut stringed instruments (usually from sheep or other farm animals—watch out PETA!), harpsichords, theorbos and lutes. Of course, these were used for this particular performance.

The use of such instrumentation was in full force as AAM made its Salt Lake City debut in the Libby Gardner Concert Hall, a fitting bookmark to the ending of this season’s Virtuoso Series. Before pursuing this any further, I would like to discuss my beef about Baroque music. First of all, because of the stylistic and compositional devices being so similar in the period, there arises out of the style an all-too-predictable and unsurprising sound. Second of all, the only classical music station in the state, KBYU (no thanks to those KUER sell outs who saw it appropriate to pull all of their classical programming off the air), sees it fit to play five-too-many hours of Baroque music. Not only Baroque music…Baroque flute music. Seriously folks, I fear that it’s KBYU’s programming that causes more accidents on the road than those cell-phone-talkin’ SUV drivin’ blondies.

Well, this concert had two things going for me to thwart my disposition to trash early music and actually do homework in the middle of a concert. First, it wasn’t a KBYU radio program. Second, there were no flutes whatsoever. And third, the performers exuded an excitement and energy that propelled the music forward in a less-than-predictable way. In fact, there were moments of pure surprise.

Andrew Manze and Co. played a stellar show consisting of works by Vivaldi, Locatelli, Telemann, Handel and Gemiani. The interpretation of Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in E Major (The Amorous) by Andrew Manze was sweet and enthusiastic. It was an incredulous combination of brilliant technique and prodigious attention to phrase structure. Oftentimes, amid the note-filled pages of Baroque music, the sense of line and forward motion is sacrificed on behalf of just getting through the piece. Conversely, AAM treated every phrase as significant parts of the whole. The last piece of the concert was a special example of the beauty and intrinsic sense of phrase that the group possesses.

The piece by the name of Follia (no translation available—if you have any, e-mail me), was originally written by Archangelo Corelli, but this version was orchestrated by a contemporary of Corelli, Francesco Geminiani. The piece was of the highest level of exactness and flexibility. The group of several musicians became a cohesive whole moving with each other every step of the way.

Am I a complete convert to all of Baroque music? I am not sure. But The Academy of Ancient Music will help me get there—as long as they don’t add a flute.
christian@red-mag.com