It is as simple as what pianist Rudolf Serkin once told a student: Before interpreting music, you have to be able to hit the notes.
Often on Friday night’s season-ending concert by Baroque Band, at Evanston’s Music Institute of Chicago, members of the ensemble did not hit the notes, marring a program designed to satisfy both exploratory and conservative tastes.
The pleasure of hearing different conceptions of “Water Music” by George Frideric Handel and Georg Telemann was largely overtaken by the anxiety that comes from how repeated problems eventually cause listeners to tense up, holding their breath every time the hapless performers begin to play.
That nearly all trouble came after intermission meant the season ended grimly, effacing the happy effect of inserting Telemann’s rarely heard suite in between familiar selections by Handel.
The Telemann has 10 numbers in dance forms that also depict actions of gods and goddesses, from sleeping to gamboling. Some pieces are meant to soothe, even caress, thereby demanding a lighter touch than ensemble director Garry Clarke applied. His robust earnestness was more successful in emphatic pieces, including the final stomping jig that he had the audience join with rhythmic clapping. There was greater pressure than ease or merriment in all of this, but players characterized convincingly enough.
Handel’s “Water Music” has 22 numbers divided among three suites (plus 11 variants). It’s possible they were played as entertainment on as many as three royal parties up and down the Thames, taking place more than 20 years apart. But the best-known of the excursions was the first, which employed 50 musicians.
Clarke initially had 22 players onstage, with pairs of horns and trumpets across the hall in the audience. After intermission, the total was 22, onstage. They did not perform all of Handel’s music, which in view of the difficulties encountered, was a relief.
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Period-instrument horns are without valves. Most contemporary performers insert a hand into the bell to establish correct pitch. This caused many hesitancies, approximations and outright squawks on Friday, crippling the performance and making separate bows for the offenders purely a courtesy.
The program will be repeated 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Augustana Lutheran Church, 5500 Woodlawn Ave., and 7:30 p.m. June 3 at Orchestra Hall, 220 S. Michigan Ave.; $17-$39; 312-235-2368.
Artner is a freelance critic.