French baroque composers prized delicacy and nuance, and, treated with an excess of refinement and reverence, their music can evoke an exotic world of exquisite boredom punctuated by fits of stately moving about. In their time, they were compared principally to their Italian counterparts, whose style was marked by theatricality, passion and vocal phrasing. Portland Baroque Orchestra's concert Saturday night at First Baptist Church provided a fascinating take on the two styles, in both its program and its performance.
Leading the performance was English conductor Paul Goodwin, whose previous collaborations with PBO have been among the high points of the ensemble's 25-year history. They opened with a "Concert" - in 18th-century France, the word denoted a collection of pieces including airs and dance movements - from Francois Couperin's "Les Gouts-reunis" ("United Tastes"), in which he attempted to bridge the French-Italian divide. Without sacrificing nuance or precision, Goodwin animated the music with crisp rhythms and buoyant, driving energy; the players contributed precise attacks and vivid instrumental color.
The dance suite from Jean-Philippe Rameau's acte de ballet "Pygmalion" at the end of the evening was even more gutsy and robust - it might have been infectiously danceable, even, if the average concertgoer still knew how to dance a gavotte or a rigaudon. Goodwin and the orchestra have always seemed to have a good rapport, and in this piece especially, they seemed really to be enjoying themselves: bassoonist Andrew Schwartz dug into his lines with gusto; Janet See (on flute and piccolo) and Kathryn Montoya (on oboe and recorder) lent brightness like songbirds competing for territory; and the strings bit into the concluding "Contredanse" with visceral excitement.
Between the French bits were two examples of Italian influence, a concerto grosso of George Frideric Handel a flute concerto of Carl Philip Emanuel Bach. The former featured excellent string playing, incisive and full of contrast, with an especially beguiling contribution by the trio of Carla Moore, Rob Diggins and Tanya Tomkins. The latter was nimbly and expressively played by soloist See, with equally expressive accompaniment; her sad, lyrical line in the slow central movement floated over dark, even tragic, harmonies from the strings. Like music of the French baroque, works like Bach's from the transitional period of the middle of the 18th century can often sound perfunctory, but this performance had real sonic heft and emotional depth.