Camerata Ama Deus captures the baroque spirit

If there is a mystique about baroque music performance, Camerata Ama Deus answers with a good laugh. Music director Valentin Radu, introducing violin soloists Thomas DiSarlo and Thomas Jackson at the ensemble's concert Friday, noted that they had doffed their jackets in the warmth of Chestnut Hill's St. Martin-in-the-Fields. He said he had asked them "to play topless."

In concertos of Bach, Telemann, and Benedetto Marcello, Radu produced an evening of baroque pops, works for oboe, trumpet, and violins. However lighthearted his introductions, the group reached a comfortable level of playing that caught the works' spirit and detail.

Period instruments speak their parts quietly; brilliance is comparative and drama carefully shaded. In the Bach Concerto in A minor for harpsichord, violin, and recorder, Bronwyn Fix-Keller's harpsichord was too subtle for the space. Her playing, though finely articulated, could not meet the projection of violin and recorder or stand apart from the full orchestral level. That kept the triple concerto from reaching its definition and made DiSarlo and recorder soloist Rainer Beckmann search for balances. Radu exploited inner colors in the string orchestra to make this less-often-played work a notable entry in the program.

In homage to Telemann, Radu found some gleaming orchestral sounds - as in the plucked accompaniment to the recorder song in the adagio of the Concerto in G minor. Beckmann's long phrases and bright technique argued for the composer's skills. In the Concerto in D, Elin Frazier, playing a valved heraldic trumpet, ranged from delicate to heroic. The work is practically a night in the theater with its array of meters and forms, and Frazier glided from section to section, livening its fabric.

In the only Italian work of the concert, oboist Sarah Davol sang her way through Marcello's melodic Concerto in C minor. Her oboe had a robust sound with ample shadings in music that doesn't seek depth but glows with serenity.

In Bach's Concerto in D minor for two violins, DiCarlo and Jackson projected different sounds and careful ensemble. And in the closing Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, Radu found a rousing last word. The orchestral colors behind the four soloists prompted solo work with strength and conviction. No mystique about that.