Buoyant Opening of Baroque Festival

Bach didn’t hesitate to acknowledge his debt to Vivaldi. Not only did he copy and rework some of the Italian master’s concertos, but Bach also devoted a movement in his Violin Concerto in E, BWV 1042 to spinning out the kind of pure, singing line he could have learned only from Vivaldi.

But he repaid the debt--with interest--by extending the concept and scope of a melody and the sense of its timelessness.

Bach’s E-Major concerto was one of the high points of the varied and buoyant program that opened the 20th annual Baroque Music Festival Corona del Mar on Sunday at St. Michael and All Angels Church.

Elizabeth Blumenstock was the splendid violin soloist with the Festival Orchestra led by founding director Burton Karson. She dazzled by playing--as Karson said from the stage later--more notes in a short space of time than anyone would think possible. But it was her sensitivity in that slow movement that the depth of her artistry could more properly be sounded.

Blumenstock and another period-instrument paragon, cellist Elisabeth Le Guin, were the soloists in Vivaldi’s Concerto in A, soaring through flamboyant arpeggios to arrive at the composer’s intoxicating finish.

Elsewhere, Le Guin consistently showed that a basso continuo role was by no means a perfunctory duty, but rather a vivid line that etched the progress of the music in a necessary and energetic manner.

But the entire ensemble has to be credited for the success of the program, even if it toiled frequently as it had to retune the gut strings of its instruments.

Georg Philipp Telemann’s contemporaries considered him a progressive composer compared with stuck-in-the-mud Bach. We should consider that a warning against equating timeliness with profundity.

Certainly Telemann, as represented here by a Concerto in C minor for oboe and a Concerto in F for soprano recorder, was indeed a composer of a new style--one that was simpler, clearer and more lyric and courtly.

It also was feebler in concept, material and development. Gone were Bach’s propelling rhythms and density of thought achieved by transparency of means. It was a poor trade-off.

Marianne Pfau handled the ungenerous soloist duties in both concertos with long-breathed, virtuoso aplomb. Karson accompanied with consideration. It wasn’t their fault that the composer offered them so much mere noodling and note-spinning.

Daniel Kerr was the organ soloist in Bach’s jaunty, vernal Sinfonia in E, BWV 49, which opened the program, and also the soloist in James Hopkins’ Chorale, Arioso and Gigue on “Wachet Auf,” which closed it. The modest work was commissioned by the festival and first heard there in 1996. Hopkins was present to acknowledge the audience’s applause.

* The 20th annual Baroque Music Festival Corona del Mar will continue with different programs and ensembles on Wednesday and Friday, 8 p.m. at Sherman Library and Gardens, 2645 E. Coast Highway. Also Sunday, 4 p.m. at St. Michael’s, 3233 Pacific View Drive. $30 at the Gardens; $24 at the church. (949) 556-2787.

Chris Pasles can be reached at (714) 966-5602 or by e-mail at chris.pasles@latimes.com.