In the hall’s inaugural concert last weekend, the Jupiter Ensemble performed the music of Handel featuring mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre and was joined by countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo for a premiere by Nico Muhly.
By
Heidi Waleson
Jupiter Ensemble and Lea Desandre at the Frick’s new Stephen A. Schwarzman Auditorium. PHOTO: GEORGE KOELLE
New York
The renovated Frick Collection includes a splendid new asset for the New York music scene: The Stephen A. Schwarzman Auditorium. Inaugurated on Saturday with a concert by the period-instrument Jupiter Ensemble, this 218-seat sub-basement-level hall proved the perfect environment for historical performance. An elegant, cave-inspired space, with softly undulating white walls and tiered audience seating descending toward the stage floor, it offers an intimate, enveloping acoustical experience. The sound quality is warm and subtly resonant, clear without being dry, flattering to instruments and voices alike.
A new iteration of lutenist Thomas Dunford’s Jupiter Ensemble featured American musicians—five string players and one on harpsichord and organ continuo—along with mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre in an hourlong program of music mostly drawn from Handel’s oratorios. Midway through, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzojoined the string players for a world premiere by Nico Muhly.
Jupiter Ensemble, Anthony Roth Costanzo and Ms. Desandre PHOTO: GEORGE KOELLE
The Handel sequence was deftly organized. Arias were paired, with slow numbers followed by fast ones, so Ms. Desandre’s steady, trance-like “As with rosy steps the morn” from “Theodora” was succeeded by an explosion of jubilant, pinpoint coloratura in “Prophetic raptures swell” from “Joseph and His Brethren.” In addition to its sensitive accompaniments, the band had its own opportunities to shine, including some vivacious dances from “Terpsichore” and an artful arrangement of the Sarabande from the Suite No. 4 in D minor. The acoustics allowed Mr. Dunford’s virtuosic work on the archlute, a soft instrument that can often be overwhelmed, to more than hold its own in the texture.
Mr. Muhly’s piece, “We Sundry Things Invent,” commissioned by the Frick, was a response to one of the collection’s greatest paintings: Giovanni Bellini’s “St. Francis in the Desert” (c. 1475-80). A setting of Thomas Traherne’s “Consummation,” its musical progression—from a serene, circling contemplation of the immediate to an expansion into awe of the infinite— was beautifully calibrated. Mr. Costanzo’s eloquent, straightforward delivery evoked the rapturous spirit of Bellini’s painting. The artwork was projected above the musicians, but you didn’t need to look at it to get the point.
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