The most riveting all-recorder concert I've ever heard

June 24, 2007

Review of the concert 'The Flute-Heaven of the Gods'
New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall - June 17, 2007
Boston Early Music Festival

This was a group of a dozen young professional recorder players who played about two dozen renaissance recorders under the baton of Paul Leenhouts. I thought it was by far the most riveting all-recorder concert I've ever heard. Here are some high points:

1. The improvisation on Boffons, where Andreas Böhlen walked out into the audience.
2. The award for the single most startling chord on the concert, and maybe in the entire festival, goes to the one on the penultimate cadence of the Bach Choral Leit uns mit deiner rechten Hand. I had been thinking that group (settings of Vater unser im Himmelreich) was being very square and German compared to the dance music that had preceded it, and suddenly, it was unsquare and German. Of course the startling quality was possible only because of the impeccable tuning.
3. The low quartet playing Triste España sin ventura. Most of the concert had most players playing most of the time, using sizes from soprano or alto to the 10-foot subcontrabass. But this set alternated a low consort (with the top line on C-bass) with a high consort). I found it inspiring, and I hope the people I play with did too, that the entire concert was performed without written music (except for the conductor). Tom Zajac remarked that that made his 10 minutes of onstage memorized music in the opera seem like child's play.