Music of the Baroque in Gramophone UK

Gramophone UK
September 2024

Founded: 1971
Home: Multiple venues

Uncounted ensembles have come and gone in Chicago during the past half century, but Music of the Baroque never seems to flag.

Come September, the nationally admired institution will launch its 54th season, quite a feat in a city where behemoths such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Lyric Opera of Chicago command the lion’s share of funding, audience support and media attention. Why has Music of the Baroque flourished where others have fallen?

For starters, since its inception Music of the Baroque has found a sweet spot where modern instruments embrace some early music practices. So though the ensemble’s personnel are drawn from the ranks of the CSO, Lyric Opera and other groups whose musicians do not use period instruments (or replicas), Music of the Baroque has always emphasised a textural transparency and tonal restraint that’s attuned to early-music sensibilities.

A few seasons ago, when the ensemble performed Mozart’s Requiem, I noted in my Chicago Tribune review that ‘for those who prefer to hear historic repertoire dispatched on period instruments and with consideration for early-music performance practice, Music of the Baroque at least provided a comparatively chaste rendition that emphasised clarity and leanness of sound over romantic excess and effusion’.

The template for this ‘best of both worlds’ approach was set by ensemble founder Thomas Wikman, who led the group for its first 30 years (he died in 2023 at age 81). Dame Jane Glover took the helm in 2002 and this season celebrates her 22nd anniversary as music director (Nicholas Kraemer also marks his 22nd anniversary this season as Music of the Baroque’s principal guest conductor). This degree of continuity – two music directors spanning more than half a century – helps explain the ensemble’s aesthetic consistency and audience appeal.

As baritone Jan Jarvis once noted of his work in Music of the Baroque, Wikman ‘brought out a specific sound and rhythmic innovations in our ensemble that no one else was doing. He had a deep knowledge and appreciation for early music. He was quite revolutionary in his approach and instilled great drama and excitement in his performances.’

Glover maintained those musical values while heightening the ensemble’s technical acuity, as she demonstrated a few seasons ago in a collaboration with pianist Angela Hewitt in the last of Mozart’s 27 piano concertos. The delicacy of Glover’s orchestral accompaniment not only suited the lustre of Hewitt’s keyboard tone but evoked a temperate, scaled-down sound more redolent of the 18th century than of ours.

For Music of the Baroque’s next season, the ensemble will revisit some of its greatest successes, with Glover conducting Haydn’s The Creation in September and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in November; Andrew Megill will lead the ‘Holiday Brass & Choral Concerts’ in December. The latter, especially, represents ‘a great tradition, begun by my predecessor, Tom Wikman’, Glover once told me. ‘It’s sort of Christmas concerts with a difference.’

But there will be fresh approaches, too. French conductor Marc Minkowski will make his ensemble debut in music by Handel, Rameau and Mozart in January, and Kraemer will celebrate his 80th birthday with Handel’s Theodora in March. Laurence Cummings, music director of the Academy of Ancient Music, will be guest conductor in a programme titled ‘The Elements’, which will contemplate earth, air, fire and water via scores by Vivaldi, Rameau, Telemann and Jean-Féry Rebel in October.

Baroque music has never had a greater champion in Chicago.