Guest Conductor Gets Period Play From Chamber Orchestra

Before the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra could play a single note in the Alex Theatre Sunday night, Bernard Labadie, first-time guest conductor, had something to say. The founder and artistic director of the Quebec chamber ensemble Les Violons du Roy, Labadie is a period-performance practice guru--and he said that he spent a week experimenting with the LACO so that they might play in that fashion. Never mind that the orchestra uses modern instruments; they would try anyway.

Sure enough, the transformation was startling. Right from the opening bars of Haydn’s Symphony No. 26 (“Lamentatione”), you could hear the flat, scraping sound, the slight swelling of attacks, and the general lack of vibrato in the violins that marks most early-music ensembles. With that, Labadie made one interesting point; getting that sound is as much a matter of technique as using old instruments. Whether or not some of Labadie’s expressive devices like the anachronistic ritards at the ends of some movements can also be called authentic is another question.

Nevertheless, the programming was very effective and timely. Keying off Palm Sunday, Labadie coupled the “Lamentatione” Symphony with Haydn’s tempestuous, equally unorthodox Symphony No. 49 (“La Passione”) and Pergolesi’s inspired Stabat Mater--all of which are, or have been interpreted as, depictions of the Crucifixion.

The Haydn performances were bracing, mercurial in mood, at times even surprising--as in the veil of melancholy that Labadie threw over “La Passione’s” whirlwind finale. And Pergolesi tripped along with fast tempos and clipped phrases in the orchestra, offset by the operatic vibratos and gripping, sorrowful emotions expressed by two excellent Canadian singers, soprano Karina Gauvin and mezzo-soprano Catherine Robbin.