SOUTHEAST BAROQUE ENSEMBLE RENEWS OLD SOUNDS

Performing Baroque music on historical instruments is akin to performing Shakespeare as it was written and staged, Sara Edgerton says.

"It's like hearing the music in the original language."

The originals are interpreted more truly through instruments that either date to the Baroque period (1600-1750 A.D.) or are replicas employing the same construction techniques, she maintains.

Edgerton and the rest of the Southeast Baroque Ensemble will perform on both authentic and replica instruments in a concert at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Old St. Vincent's Church in Cape Girardeau.

They will play music by J.S. Bach, Telemann, Heinrich Biber, Jean Baptiste Loeillet and Georg Muffat.

Besides Edgerton, a cellist, the other members of the ensemble are fellow Southeast faculty members Gary Miller, a harpsichordist, and flutist Paul Thompson. Joining them for this concert will be guest artist David Wilson, a violinist who is a Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University.

Edgerton's cello was made about 1800 and features the thinner bridge, gut strings and light bow of the period. Wilson's violin was made by Giovanni Paolo Maggini of Brescia, Italy, in about 1620.

Miller's harpsichord is a copy of the instruments made by Pascal Taskin in Paris in 1700. The frame is made entirely of wood and all materials correspond to the original except for the use of the plastic plectra that replace goose quills.

Thompson's flute is a replica of an instrument originally made for Frederick the Great in 1750. That instrument resides in the Library of Congress in Washington.

Modern instruments simply sound different from historical instruments and are played differently in ways that range from technique to nuance.

"There was a tendency to make instruments that play in a much more narrow range and the instruments were more temperamental," Edgerton said.

"... You have to be so attuned. In a way, it tells me how to play Bach."

This will be the ensemble's lone Cape Girardeau performance of the year.

"We are lucky to have a venue like Old St. Vincent's," Miller said. "It enhances the notion that you are drawing the listener into another world."

Thompson, who is married to Edgerton, has yet another conception of playing music on historical rather than modern instruments.

"In some ways it's like an Old Master painting with layers of varnish. Someone takes off the layers of varnish and you can see what Michelangelo or Rubens intended," he said.

"Sometimes it's quite shocking."

Tickets are $4 general and $2 for children. The concert is free to holders of a university ID.