Skill, but no bangs or flashes from the Baroque

2:35pm Monday 19th November 2007

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A PACKED house at the Courtyard on Monday, November 5, was treated to fireworks of a more restrained variety when Dame Emma Kirkby joined the instrumental group Florilegium for a programme of Baroque music - no sudden bangs or flashes, but instead a continuous exposition of the higher skills of sensitive phrasing and alluring tone.

The Telemann Overture that began the programme provided a kind of middle way, almost an Establishment voice, from which subsequent items diverged in their various styles.

The name Hasse is probably no more than that to most of us (to this reviewer certainly) and it was good to have a chance to hear what all the 18th century's adulation of the composer was about.

If, as one history book tells us, he was "untroubled by any revolutionary impulses", this does not mean that his music is dull: the cantata we heard contained many elegant, even sensuous moments that made revolutionary impulses irrelevant.

After two pieces by the 17th-century composer Schmelzer, including some splendid bagpipe noises, and a delightfully capricious symphony by CPE Bach, the concert ended with a deeply moving performance of JS Bach's cantata Ich habe genug.

Throughout the evening Dame Emma was on wonderful form, her high notes as easy and luminous as ever, and her discreet virtuosity was matched in the recorder and flute playing of Florilegium's artistic director Ashley Solomon.

Despite the Spartan lighting, this was an evening of comfort and joy.