Friday, March 7, 2025
Concert Hall, Helsinki Music Centre, Mannerheimintie 13 A, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
Members of the FRSO proved adaptable to Richard Egarr’s brand of Baroque-isms, he directing from the harpsichord in a forty-five-minute selection from Purcell’s semi-opera The Fairy Queen – Act beginnings and ends, entr’actes, and songs delightfully spun by Rowan Pierce, she the mistress of enunciation, embellishment and emotions, stylish and sharing. Renditions were lively, string-playing vital and rounded – with vibrato included -, trumpeters grappled with their ancient instruments and secured an honourable victory, and hard-stick timpani added pomp to ceremonial numbers. Staying in the memory is a little duet for oboes supported by Egarr’s vibrant keyboard. Loosely based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Purcell invested some of his finest music into his final theatrical work, here relished. As were the intimacies and inventions of the Handel Concerto (strings) from Opus Six, including a one-note fugue that leapt off the page; and, sporting the largest ensemble of the evening, his Music for the Royal Fireworks, ebullient and grand, timbres unvarnished, dances tenderised.
Henry Purcell (arr. Richard Egarr): Fairy Queen Suite
George Frideric Handel: Concerto Grosso in B-flat, Op.6/7
Music for the Royal Fireworks