The manuscripts of 12 of the works on this Sarasa Ensemble’s “Schrank (Cabinet) II, at the Friends Meeting House on Saturday, survived a 1760 war by being locked in a cabinet (designated Schrank II) in Dresden, Germany—and again survived Dresden’s firebombing in World War II.

The featured composers were born between 1632 and 1695—as well as one in 1992!  Violinists Rebecca Scout Nelson, Susanna Ogata, and Nelli Jabotinsky; violinist and violist Emily Dahl Irons; cellists Jennifer Morsches and Timothy Merton, harpsichordist John McKean, and tenor Richard Pittsinger were on hand.

Perhaps selected to acknowledge Dresden’s unusual losses to war, artistic and otherwise, the Funereal Symphony of Pietro Locatelli opened with an anguished lament for strings alone in F minor, replete with grinding dissonances, dramatic chromaticism, and suspensions highlighted by the absence of vibrato. The following Alla breve rather lightened the mood with addition of the continuo and a more polyphonic texture. The drama of Vivaldi’s aria “The angry sky does not always hurl thunderbolts” is only somewhat more overt, the composer perhaps choosing to emphasize the calming influence of steadfast loyalty in the face of a tempest (the idea surprisingly akin to Oscar Hammerstein’s “When you walk through a storm . . .”) though with the turbulent accompaniment well evoking heavy weather. Richard Pittsinger sang with conviction and mostly reserved his vocal “thunderbolts” for the concluding cadenza.

The concert mixed the national styles to be found in the Schrank II manuscripts, ergo the inclusion of part of the Overture-Suite Les nations by Georg Philipp Telemann. We heard Menuets I and II, the first courtly and amiable, alternating a solo violin (Rebecca Scout Nelson) with the section in concerto grosso fashion, and the second contrasting with isorhythmic pairs of chords. The players added elegant ornamentation on the return of the first menuet. In Handel’s solo cantata “Sweet, indeed, is the anguish of love,” Pittsinger guided us through the narrator’s transition from relishing the pain of love through the realization that his affection is unrequited and ultimately to his emphatic assertion that he no longer knows how to love her. The artist’s sweetly languid rendering of the first aria featured seamless legato and impressive breath control; in the central recitative his expression became more forthright, but the final aria reached the height of drama—and vocal display—as the narrator, wounded but defiant, briskly dismissed his former love, washing his hands of her with considerable coloratura.

The Andante movement of Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in C Minor (intriguingly nicknamed The Suspicion) followed. Unusually, this slow movement was in the same C minor as its companion movements. What struck one here was the absence of the solo violin and harpsichord and the spare, even austere, two-voice texture of melody (violins) and bass (technically, the viola doubled the bass an octave higher). The players’ shunning of vibrato further enhanced the feeling of otherworldly isolation.

From André Campra’s four-act L’Europe galante, the first example of a new French genre, the opéra-ballet, Pittsinger and Sarasa Ensemble drew Dom Pedro’s aria; this deals with the theme (not so overworked in 1697) of a romantic young man dying of love. On simply reading the text, one is not inclined to feel much sympathy for Dom Pedro who, while working up the nerve to tell the object of his affection of his love, decides he will die in any case whether she rejects or embraces it. Nevertheless, Campra’s enchanting music combined with the particularly expressive and beautiful singing and playing of Pittsinger and Sarasa to make one regret Dom Pedro’s imminent demise, which may be more than just a poetic conceit.

Given this program’s focus on the city of Dresden, it was not a stretch for Sarasa to commission its friendly colleague Rebecca Scout Nelson, who was born and grew up in a town near that city, to write a new work for the ensemble and participate in its premiere performances with them. The result, Augenblicke (“Glimpses”), is a reflection of her childhood memories in the early years of reunified Germany. The work for tenor, narrator, and strings employs an interesting salmagundi of Nelson’s own thoughts, Bible and liturgical quotes, German folksong, and Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel. The piece’s pattern consisted of the composer/performer’s narration in alternation with Pittsinger’s and the instrumentalists’ musical reflection. For example, after Nelson marks her birth on the first day of spring (perhaps in this context a metaphor for the rebirth of a single Germany), Pittsinger “answers” with German folksong (“A bird wanted to hold a wedding in the green forest”). The device somewhat resembled the traditional pairing of recitative (narrative) and aria (reflection). Later, after her family has added two more children, Nelson states that despite their frequent inability to fit in with native Germans, the Nelsons make their own contentment and security. Though they later witness neo-Nazis who attack foreigners verbally and physically, they keep familial bonds strong, aided by their religious faith and by sharing American culture (e.g., Thanksgiving dinners, Star Wars watch parties, teaching Germans how to play baseball and line-dance, etc.). Pittsinger displayed his impressive versatility: devout in the religious utterances, exuberant in the folksong’s birdcalls, lyrical in the Humperdinck. The world premiere of this engaging piece served as a valuable warning of the destructive power of extreme nationalism and xenophobia (ills that confront our own country currently) as well as a reminder of the countering power of sharing different cultures and finding common ground.

From Jean-Baptiste Lully’s tragédie en musique Perseus, Pittsinger and Sarasa gave us Medusa’s recitative cum aria “I have lost that beauty that made me vain” and “Everywhere I bring horror and death.” In something of a reverse pants role, the tenor as Medusa relates that the goddess Athene, jealous of her astounding beauty, cursed her with equally astounding ugliness, turning her lustrous hair to hissing snakes and giving her a gaze that turns mortals to stone. Knowing that villains get the juiciest roles, Pittsinger seized his opportunity, using messa di voce, ornamentation, and accents to highlight key words, e.g., barbarous, beautiful, cruel, terrible, dread, etc. Using musical and physical means, he also relished Medusa’s unapologetically exuberant evil, summed up in her final sentence: “I have lost the pleasure of being the world’s desire but have found new delight in being its terror.”

Though perhaps the least familiar of the composers featured, Johann Georg Pisendel was in fact Dresden’s most prominent musician in his prime, an exceptional violinist and composer who led the Court Orchestra and accompanied the Elector of Saxony on trips abroad. Sarasa gave us his Imitation des caractères de la Danse, a précis of the most popular forms of French dance at the time, including Loure, Rigaudon, Canarie, Bourée, Musette, Polonoise, with a concluding Presto. Though brief, the suite gave the listener a taste of the diversity of French dances when played with the Sarasa Ensemble’s infectious rhythm and élan. The players capped it off with the scintillating passagework of the final Presto. This led quite naturally into possibly the most brilliant vocal display piece on the program, Handel’s There let Hymen oft appear. The composer set a John Milton text summoning Hymen (god of marriage) to appear “with taper clear . . . and revelry . . . and antique pageantry”. Pittsinger did indeed revel in the pyrotechnics of Handel’s extended melismas with the full company maintaining clarity of ensemble and rhythm as they doubled and echoed the tenor.

Vivaldi’s Sinfonia provides a three-part overture to his opera “Truth put to the test.” The first section had multiple recognizable traits of the composer, including high-energy string writing and extended sequences exploring other keys. The second section supplied a plangent slow movement with the players’ sweetly mournful cantabile. For the final section Vivaldi created a miniature concerto movement with solo violin (Nelson) alternating with the full violin section, making the terraced dynamics still more striking than in the previous sections. The aria “Tyrannical adverse fate,” from Vivaldi’s opera “Arsilda, Queen of Pontus,” rivals the Handel heard earlier in vocal and instrumental display. Prince Tamese, heir to the throne but thought to be dead, plans to ascend his rightful position. Pittsinger well contrasted the man defying adverse fate in the outer sections with the benign would-be ruler in the more lyrical B section. The singer deserves kudos for his no-holds-barred ornaments added for the return of the A section.

Sarasa returned to more excerpts from Telemann’s Les nations for the final group: The Turks and The Muscovites. The first featured ebullient and propulsive dotted triple rhythms and distinctive dynamic swells on single chords (quite different from Mozart’s conception of Turkish music!). The second used the unusual sounds of miniature bells (without distinct pitch, they more resembled metallic castanets) and the harpsichord’s lute stop deputizing for the score’s “archlute.” Based on a rising three-note ostinato in the bass, this fascinating piece began with regular rhythm but later devolved into early music aleatoricism, with the basso continuo and upper parts randomly going their own separate ways. This was a highly unorthodox close, but the audience was most enthusiastic anyway so we had two more Vivaldi arias as encores in which Pittsinger and the ensemble further distinguished themselves.

The ensemble continued its mission by sharing the creed of Martin Luther King that members of a society who feel they have no stake in it believe they have nothing to lose and even develop an unconscious wish to destroy it. In addition to its public subscription concerts, since 2002 the ensemble has brought concerts and musical residencies to young men and women in the care of the Department of Youth Services and has furthered its goals of using music to promote positive social impact.

Praise to Sarasa Ensemble for its adventuresome programming, coupling a relatively recently rediscovered trove of fine early music with a world premiere; this auspicious opener promises still more unconventional programming—and distinguished performances.

Geoffrey Wieting holds Bachelor’s degrees in organ and Latin from Oberlin College and a Master’s degree in collaborative piano from New England Conservatory. He is Organist of First Parish Church of Weston as well as a freelance organist, collaborative pianist and vocal coach. He sings with Coro Allegro and the Copley Singers and serves on the Board of Directors of the Old West Organ Society.