BASICALLY BACH
at Orchestra Hall
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The aim of the original-instrument movement may be dutiful replication, but I suspect that there are other motivations. An orchestra of only 20 to 30 instrumentalists costs less to hire and can easily fit into venues such as churches and community centers that charge minimal rent. (Of course this does make music available to a wider and cost-conscious public.) Snob appeal is another selling point: a claim of authenticity implies scholarship, which lures concertgoers, especially those who took Music 101 in college, into believing that they’re one up on their friends and neighbors. And once the movement has created a following, it’s time for another round of CDs: period-instrument Bach, Mozart, and–egad–Beethoven. Improbable careers have been launched this way. One of the movement’s leading advocates, Roger Norrington, was an obscure Oxford-trained musician going nowhere in the early 70s.
I was recently reminded of the authenticity issue while listening, on consecutive weekends, to all-Mozart concerts by Basically Bach and by Murray Perahia and the New York-based Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Both groups attempted to present a scaled-down, more “authentic” Mozart, though only the Basically Bach musicians play on replicas of instruments from Mozart’s time.
Of all of Mozart’s 41 symphonies, the last one (nicknamed the Jupiter) is arguably the one most suited for performance by a large modern orchestra. Complex, intricately contrapuntal, it depends on louder, better-tuned intruments to articulate the contrasts and reconciliations that make it a marvel of precise formalism and intense drama. Not surprisingly, in the hands of Basically Bach it sounded at once murky and watered down. The strings were clumsy in their counterpoints, the winds dispirited. And Robinson seemed to have little regard for the piece’s overall architectonics. To make matters worse, a woman in the front row coughed incessantly during the first two movements. Toward the end, many in the audience, myself included, were fidgeting in their seats.
