Concert Review—

Music Fit For A King

By Wendy Wipprecht

The Aulos Ensemble returned to Newtown after an absence of several years to perform a program entitled “Music at Versailles: A Royal Entertainment” at Edmond Town Hall on Sunday, November 6. This was the last in the fall concerts put on by Newtown Friends of Music; the spring concerts will begin after the holidays, on Sunday, February 12.

Those who were fortunate enough to attend the candlelight concert the Aulos Ensemble gave at Newtown House during the town’s tercentennial celebration in 2005 will recall with delight their performance of Colonial-era European and American music played on period instruments.

There is a certain ironic pleasure to be derived from hearing music composed for performance at Versailles, the seat of the absolute French monarchy, in a New England town hall, the symbol of American local democracy. Other circumstances, however, have recently brought the 18th Century forcibly to mind for many Connecticut residents.

Power outages sent many of us back to Colonial times, when heat, light, water, food, and basic hygiene were not to be had save by endless toil. Only kings and the nobility led different lives, and proclaimed their exemption from labor by gorgeous display and elaborate etiquette.

The French court embodied conspicuous consumption: Louis XIV’s suppers began at ten o’clock, contained twenty separate dishes, and went on for hours, brilliantly lighted by hundreds of candles and accompanied by music composed for the occasion.

The music of the royal court was also ornate, elegant, and formal, but because Louis XIV himself and several of the upper nobility were also music lovers, the court attracted the best musicians of the day.

The Aulos Ensemble, formed by five Juilliard graduates in 1973 and named for an ancient Greek wind instrument, was at the forefront of the original instrument movement. Its members are Christopher Krueger (flauto traverso), Marc Schachman (baroque oboe), Linda Quan (baroque violin), Myron Lutzke (baroque violoncello), and Arthur Haas (harpsichord).

The recent concert in Newtown began and ended with suites from the opera-ballets of Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), one of several great French composers of the 18th Century. The five pieces from the Suite from Les fêtes d’Hébé, an allegory about the arts of music, poetry, and dance, demonstrated musical variety and drama that were surprising.

Another great 18th Century French musician, Francois Couperin (1668-1733), came from a famous musical family. His fame rested on his harpsichord music, his theoretical work on harpsichord performance, and his royal appointments as the king’s organist and as the director of chamber music, positions he held under both Louis XIV and Louis XV. His contribution was the rococo style.

The Aulos Ensemble played the Troisième Concert royal, or third royal concert. All sections have the names of dances as their titles, but they are intended for listening rather than dancing: the Prelude for all instruments except the flute; the sprightly Allemande gives the flute the melody, with accompaniment from the cello and harpsichord; the Courante gives its melody to the oboe; the Sarabande grave, with flute and violin solos; the Gavotte, which gives melody to flute and oboe, with accompaniment from the cello and harpsichord; and the Musette belongs to the harpsichord.

The Aulos Ensemble writes its own transcriptions and arrangements, but they are probably being true to Couperin’s intent by providing so much instrumental variation in so small a space.

Three short pieces originally written for harpsichord by the lesser-known composer Claude-Benigne Balbastre (1724-1799) were also performed. The Aulos Ensemble performed transcriptions of La Castelmore, in which the oboe plays a pastoral melody over the harpsichord and droning cello, and then the violin and cello compete for prominence in a graceful rondeau; La Morisseau, a stately hymn of praise that features a beautiful melody cunningly ornamented in the French style; and La Malesherbe, which begins with a pretty and refined oboe melody and then moves into a speedy, rollicking dance for the violin. It was a delightful introduction, one that left me wanting to know and hear more.

Rameau’s first opera-ballet, in the Suite from Les Indes Galantes, or “The Indies in Love,” was also an accomplished offering, with the ensemble performing 13 parts of the Suite.

This was a concert full of surprises and delights. The surprises centered, at least for this reviewer, on how much can be contained within the formal boundaries of this music, which is generally seen as at a remove from ordinary life and emotion. What conveyed this new information to me was doubtless the excellence and delicacy of the Aulos Ensemble’s playing.

To the members of this group, the music of the French court is as vital as any other, and they know it from the inside out: they not only perform this repertoire, they are also its transcribers, and thus, in a way, are re-creating it twice over. Then there is the delight of listening to five people playing superbly, individually and together. To say this concert was breathtaking would be factually true, but it would be more true to its spirit to say that a petal fell from a rose and raised a storm halfway around the world.

(Editor’s Note: Please visit NewtownBee.com and click on the Features tab to find an expanded version of this review.)