Early Music Ensemble Makes Striking L.A. Debut

Historicists with heart, the Renaissance violin group known as the King’s Noyse has established a mighty reputation in the early-instrument movement. They are rightly praised for authenticity and enthusiasm. Of course, it’s one thing to hear their recordings, and another to see them and their instruments--fine 16th century replicas--in action, as the local audience discovered at the group’s Los Angeles debut on Wednesday.

As part of the Chamber Music in Historic Sites series, the East Coast-based ensemble performed amid the Renaissance Revival setting and decor of the Ebell Club Grand Salon. Festooned with looming chandeliers, an ornately detailed ceiling and lavish draperies, the site (built circa 1927) proved a suitable match for this antique yet compelling--even sometimes lusty--music and music-making.

Founder and violinist David Douglass led the group in a program called “Le Jardin des Melodies, Songs and Dances of 16th Century Paris.” While the first half was devoted to simpler and more rustic pleasures, the second half involved more refined, contrapuntal pieces.

To be sure, these instruments have their own sound, one of coarse warmth by modern standards, but they also make for a tightly integrated ensemble texture. Soprano Ellen Hargis displayed a captivating voice throughout, including the closing piece, a “lamentation of Elizabeth of Austria on the death of Charles IX.”

For an encore, the group shifted culture and sentiment, hoisting an old English drinking song, as all the players extolled the virtues of Nottingham Ale into the rainy L.A. evening.