Baroque bouquets aplenty, if only the garden had been a little smaller.

Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
March 12, 2015

It’s been a great time of late for Australian early music fans. Previously this week, Harry Christophers and his elite Sixteen took Sydneysiders to choral heaven thanks to (among others) the Italians Palestrina and Allegri. Now, another legend, William Christie, came to town with his majestic ensemble Les Arts Florissants to take us on a ramble through an Italian garden in the company of a whole host of Italians such as Stradella and Vivaldi, plus a few ring-in Italianophiles like Handel, Haydn and Mozart.

I’ll get my gripe out of the way first. The Concert Hall is too big a venue for these forces. What should have been an intimate garden felt more often like a piece of parkland. Sure, William Christie may be the musical equivalent of Capability Brown, but that wasn’t always enough. The band was superb, playing with dash and vigour. The conducting was magnificent, the maestro shaping each offering to perfection and balancing the blend of warm strings and flawless woodwind with grace and style. Too often, though, the inner detail (so frequently the revelation of period...