Pro Musica

Pro Musica Rara occupies quite a specialized niche, performing mostly 18th- and early 19th-century repertoire on period instruments. Such a focus may not necessarily start stampedes at the box office, but the value is considerable. Getting in touch with the musical past is an endlessly rewarding endeavor, and Pro Musica Rara does it with determination, scholarship and, increasingly, technical elan. For its 32nd season, the organization will demonstrate those qualities in a new place, the Towson University Center for the Arts.

The impulse to recapture the past is a strong one. It drives such things as re-creations of Civil War battles, which give participants a sense of how the real thing must have looked, felt, sounded. And it explains a musical phenomenon known, for better or worse, as the "authenticity movement" -- an attempt to replicate the way music of earlier times was first played. Like those modern-day Yankees and Rebels, the followers of this movement dig deep into the subject and re-learn how to do many things in order to make the time travel valid.

Pro Musica Rara came up with a strong lineup for its traditional "SuperBach Sunday" program, this one celebrating two giants - Bach and Mozart - and, for good measure, one of Bach's most talented sons. It was a refreshing combination. The ensemble, devoted to performing music on period instruments and in authentic style, has an uneven track record technically. But, except for one piece that had to be re-started (a Mozart arrangement of a Bach fugue) and an occasional bit of intonation fuzziness, the level of execution this time was admirable.

If the phonograph had been invented in Bach's time, we'd know exactly howhe intended his Brandenburg concertos to sound.Given that there's no such definitive recording, however, musicians rely on the next best thing: the notes Bach wrote, the instruments he used, and the accounts of his contemporaries regarding how they were to be played.All of these sources inform the lyrical music-making of Pro Musica Rara, Baltimore's resident early- music ensemble, which will present a program of baroque masters today at 3:30 p.m. in its second concert of the season at the Baltimore Museum of Art."

After a couple of shaky concerts earlier this season, Pro Musica Rara hit its stride Sunday with a program rich in repertoire and performance quality. The organization, devoted to historically informed presentations of music from the 17th and early 18th centuries, focused this time on classicism. Mature Haydn and early Beethoven provided the key points of reference; the clarinet and fortepiano provided the common sonic threads. Haydn's E-flat minor Trio from around 1795, nicknamed "Jacob's Ladder," matches a darkly expressive movement with a lighter, more virtuosic one that seeks primarily to entertain.

No one interested in magnificent flute playing will want to miss Timothy Day's appearance with Pro Musica Rara Sunday afternoon at 3: 30 in the Meyerhoff Auditorium at the Baltimore Museum of Art.From 1976 to 1988, Day was the principal flutist of the Baltimore Symphony. He played with the sort of imagination and beauty that are not likely to be forgotten by anyone lucky enough to have heard him. Day, now professor of flute at the San Francisco Conservatory, will join the musicians of Pro Musica Rara in works by Telemann, Quantz and Rossi.

Pro Musica Rara, noted for its commitment to historically authentic instruments, devotes most of its attention to the 17th and 18th centuries. This weekend, the focus will spread to the 19th with performances of Schumann's rapturous Piano Quintet and some pieces by Chopin using a newly built re-creation of a fortepiano much like the one Schumann and wife Clara owned. Pianist Edmund Battersby will be the featured artist. He will be joined in the Schumann work by Pro Musica regulars Greg Mulligan and Ivan Stefanovic (violins)

Dressed right to play The lowdown -- Ever heard of musicians who don't sing or play instruments? Acoustical artist Benoit Maubrey and his Berlin-based group wear musical clothes to perform. Electronic clothes and dresses interact with light and movement sensors on stage to create a completely original musical composition each concert. After the show, Maubrey will explain how the technology works and allow audience members to try it out. If you go -- The performance is at 7 p.m. Monday.

Pro Musica Rara and baroque dancers perform today at 0) BMABaroque music is more closely tied to dance than any other variety of what we today refer to as "classical" music. This afternoon at 3:30 at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Pro Musica Rara will present an unusual opportunity to perceive the interconnections between these two genres. The program will feature Boston's Ken Pierce Baroque Dancers, who will perform their historical reconstructions of dances from Purcell's "The Faerie Queene."