By Nancy Plum
Performing 17th- and 18th-century music from a 21st-century perspective is always a challenge. Instruments have evolved over the past centuries, as have acoustical tuning and performance techniques. While orchestras and choruses are often looking for the next new thing, there are ensembles dedicated to preserving performance practice the way Baroque composers intended. One such ensemble is La Fiocco, which presented a season-ending concert this past Saturday at Christ Congregation Princeton.
Specializing in music of the late Renaissance, Baroque and early Classical eras on period instruments, La Fiocco featured three singers and eight instrumentalists in a program devoted to the music from “Henry Purcell’s London.” Like Mozart, Purcell lived hard and died young as a composer, producing an expansive repertory of music in his 36-year life. He composed under the patronage of England’s last two Stuart kings and musically ushered in the age of William and Mary. For this performance, La Fiocco brought together three experienced and accomplished singers in soprano Laura Heimes, tenor Stephen Ng, and baritone Brian Ming Chu to perform songs and ayres of the esteemed late 17th-century composer, as well as works of Purcell’s contemporaries. Throughout the evening, the three soloists showed themselves to be animated and theatrical, adapting their voices well to the very acoustically-live space of the church. more