Kenneth Herman

San Diego Arts

Julia Gooding Sings Early Baroque at St. James La Jolla

Merry Christmas from the 17th Century!
By Kenneth Herman
Posted on Tue, Dec 11th, 2007
Last updated Tue, Dec 11th, 2007

The drone of familiar Christmas carols through the shopping malls at this season brings to mind satirist Tom Lehrer’s tart couplet “Angels we have heard on high, telling us to go and buy.” To judge the canon of Christmas music from the mall background music, you might easily believe that it all started with “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and “Silent Night” and ended with “Jingle Bell Rock,” with a decidedly commercial 1920s detour into the likes of “White Christmas,” “Winter Wonderland,” and the incessant “pah-rum-pa-pum-pum” of that irritating little drummer boy.

This is why the Early Music Society’s program “Puer Natus, Christmas Music from 17^th-century Italy and Germany” was such a tonic to jaded ears Sunday evening (Dec. 9) at St. James Episcopal Church, La Jolla. A quartet of British musicians featuring the lovely, fresh-voiced soprano Julia Gooding, presented two solid hours of obscure but charming music from what might be called the forgotten Baroque, that century of music that flourished before Bach or Handel ever started to pick out tunes on their toy harpsichords in their respective nurseries.

The sole recognizable work on this program was Michael Praetorius’ “In dulci jubilo,” an infectiously joyful Nativity song (the Latin title means “in sweet joy”) that was given the heavy-handed English title “Good Christian Men Rejoice” by fusty Victorian-era translators. In this piece and in Heinrich Schuetz’s solo motet based on Psalm 150 “Lobet den Herrn,” we heard the strong, bright timbre and agile clarity of Gooding’s soprano, a voice that has brought her many important roles in Europe’s thriving Baroque opera scene. She brings to this style of singing—which could easily be called the original bel canto—an alert and fluid virtuosity that makes its florid ornamentation sound perfectly natural.

Gooding was joined by organist/harpsichordist Roger Hamilton and two cornettists, Jeremy West and Jamie Savan. The cornetto, an extinct Renaissance instrument that was barely resuscitated in the last century, is a strange but sweet-sounding cross between a recorder and a French horn. When well-played, and both West and Savan are more than accomplished, it can spin out delicate melodies like a muted oboe, if you can imagine an oboe with a mute. Several of the ensemble works such as the opening “Puer natus in Bethlehem” by Václav Karel Holan Rovensky and “Parvule solis” by Johann Georg Reichwein, used the paired cornettos in a kind of rondo arrangement playing spritely interludes between the soprano verses, all accompanied and tied together by the organ continuo.

Gooding proved particularly adept at this lilting, arioso style of singing, which is indebted to early opera and the monodies of Claudio Monteverdi. The “Parvule solis,” for example, is a song directed to the child Jesus not in the awe of Renaissance motets or the sentimentality of later carols, but rather the playful humor of those early opera comedies.

“May he wink his agreement with a sidelong glance

May he wink and hurrah free me, hurrah little Jesus, hail.”

On the other hand, Alberich Mazak’s “Omnes puello novella” was more like a dramatic solo cantata with the cornettos playing showy extended ritornellos between the soprano couplets.

A portion of the program was devoted to instrumental music, including a fine trio sonata by Giovanni Paolo Cima that featured the two cornettos. For all of this ensemble's tasteful, refined playing, this sonata lacked—as did many of the works—a bass instrument such as a gamba or dulzian (the forerunner of the bassoon). Although the left hand of the organist plays the written bass line, the performance practice of the time reinforced this line with another instrument and simultaneously enriched and grounded the whole texture. For a group so otherwise attunded to performance practice, I thought this was an odd oversight.

West’s account of a Cima Violin Sonata—the cornetto could cover the same range as a violin, and cornettists were never above appropriating the repertory of others—stressed the liquid, vocal qualities of the cornetto, while Savan’s set of variations by Francesco Rognoni on a Palestrina motet pushed the instrument’s sound closer to that of a modern member of the brass family.

Hamilton’s keyboard playing was never less than stylish and always cleanly executed. I enjoyed his take on a Toccata by Claudio Merulo, a wistful, wandering fantasy that defied predictability. Hamilton’s seamless technique lingered just enough over crucial cadences to give it breathing space.

Music of this period is little known, in part because it tends towards the intimate and reflective. It took the development of the court orchestra and the exuberant style of the early 18^th century for music to acquire the grandeur we usually associate with the Baroque. But a visit to the previous century from time to time is a gourmet excursion reserved for special occasions and is always a delight.

About the author: Kenneth Herman began his writing career as a music critic for the San Diego Union-Tribune and covered classical music for the San Diego Edition of the Los Angeles Times (1982-1992). He wrote "A History of the Spreckels Organ." and is currently Music Director/Organist for the First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego and conducts the 60-voice San Diego Youth Choir.
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