LENOX — One could witness any number of early music performances and yet be utterly blindsided by Apollo’s Fire (a.k.a. the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra). That’s because few early music groups perform at the level of precision this ensemble regularly achieves. And when they do, you might be shocked, especially if you’re somewhat attracted to music from around J.S. Bach’s time but can’t completely warm up to it. Maybe it strikes you as superficially attractive but a bit too rustic and rough-hewn when you bite into it — much like those giant strawberries from California that are never as sweet as they look. If this is the case, then you are a sitting duck, because Apollo’s Fire produces strains of sound that can overwhelm a listener’s senses before they know what hit them. They do this to audiences all the time, and they did it to quite a lot of people Friday, July 16 at Tanglewood.
There’s nothing the least bit wrong with the way most American orchestras enter the stage prior to a concert. The action needn’t be fancy or formal. But Apollo’s Fire has turned it into an art form: They execute a sort of super-deluxe European entrance that might seem a bit silly were it not a sure harbinger of the remarkable polish this group puts on every detail of their performances. What you see when they’re onstage is equal in quality to what you hear. Even the stage lighting is perfectly matched to colors of instruments, clothing, hair color, and the like.
Everything about an Apollo’s Fire performance is charming, including the period attire artistic director Jeannette Sorrell wears on stage, where she conducts from the harpsichord. There she stands, describing in her pre-concert talk the Tanglewood-like atmosphere of the Leipzig coffee gardens where Bach used to hang out and jam with Telemann and Vivaldi on summer evenings. (Yes, you can call it jamming, because improvisation was a normal part of music performance in the early 18th century.)
These caffeine-fueled spectacles featured Bach sitting at a keyboard, playing for tips. It’s easy to picture this scene when Apollo’s Fire is onstage, because Sorrell and band recreate the coffee-house atmosphere from the outset.
No matter who plays it, you can tell that the Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There” is a great pop song, and after one listen, you’ll walk away singing it. Quite a lot of music holds up in just this way under sloppy performance (think Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women”). But some types of music rely so heavily on the magical sonorities of certain musical instruments (e.g., baroque violin) that they must be played with perfect intonation or else the spell is broken and Cinderella’s gorgeous carriage is reduced to a wilted pumpkin.
It happens all the time.
It’s not hard to imagine Vivaldi or Telemann becoming so enamored of the sonic beauty inherent in their favorite instruments that they feel compelled to coax out every last drop of beauty hiding within them. It’s what composers do (or ought to do), but only a precise performance can release the magic thus engendered. Anyone can sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and make it sound decent. But only one instrument can do justice to “Fire and Rain,” and that is James Taylor’s voice. Likewise, Telemann’s music relies on the distinctive sonorities of what we now call period instruments.
What differentiates Apollo’s Fire from other ensembles using period instruments is the last measure of perfection, the last one or two percent, that tiny bit of wiggle room that separates absolute perfection from what is considered humanly possible. It’s almost like the tiny but crucially important difference between a partial and total eclipse of the sun. Apollo’s Fire closes that gap to a startling extent, and when they do, it is immediately audible — astounding, really.
If Mary Poppins were to attend an Apollo’s Fire performance, she’d be obliged to say, “We are not a codfish,” because of all the wide eyes and slack jaws in the audience. People often look this way just before bursting into tears over an entirely unexpected instance of sublime beauty. Jeannette Sorrell and Apollo’s Fire know exactly how to elicit this response. So, the next time they’re in town, watch out.
