Ólafsson - Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert, 10 September 2026

Wigmore Hall

Bach: Prelude in E major, BWV 854
Beethoven: Piano Sonata no.27 in E minor
Bach: Partita no. 6 in E minor, BWV 830
Schubert: Piano Sonata in E minor, D 566
Beethoven: Piano Sonata no.30 in E major, op.109

Vikingur Ólafsson (piano) 

Three sold-out Wigmore Hall recitals, of which this was the first, marked the end or better, climax, of Vikingur Ólafsson’s tour with this programme. Intervention of a stray hearing aid reached the level of an announcement being made, the stage cleared, and a pause scheduled in what was otherwise a recital without break, for the owner to put things right. As Ólafsson disarmingly owned, he had not been too happy about it at the time, but in retrospect, taking a break and returning to Bach’s E minor Partita was an interesting experience, not least because it was what he had been doing with the programme as a whole over this tour. He thus showed himself not only an outstanding musician, but a good sport—and indeed estimable diplomat.

It was the first time I had managed to hear Ólafsson as a soloist. He clearly divides opinion, as the cliché has it. I can imagine some may not have liked his way with this music. Indeed, I had my doubts concerning the deliberate approach to the opening Bach prelude (E major, Book I). Once my ears had settled, though, crystal-clear counterpoint told its own story. There is nothing routine to his interpretative stance, which seemed, moreover, very much to have been directed towards the programme as a whole: a demonstration, as he described it at the close in eloquent as well as word-perfect English, of what tonality can do, of how late Beethoven can and should be approached not only from Romantics such as Schumann and Brahms, but also from Bach, his dizzying array of contrapuntal techniques, and their emotional instantiation as music. 

Beethoven’s op.90 E minor Sonata followed, with similar, quite extraordinary clarity, although this time Ólafsson allowed himself a little pedal. I was struck by the first – and indeed second – movement’s intellectual, emotional, and sheer physical immediacy in a performance that captured to a tee this work’s position on the threshold of the ‘late’, not unlike the op.95 String Quartet. A direct performance nonetheless opened up other possibilities, without mannerism, towards the close. Its companion movement came as a breath of fresh air: contrast, yes, but above all response. Whilst strikingly different in tempo and (relatively detached) touch from how I hear the music, I found it compelling indeed. Not, I hasten to add, that it was without beautifully voiced legato, far from it, but it was not the default. Above all, there was a freshness to the conception that put me in mind, however different the results, of some of the early occasions I heard Igor Levit in this repertoire. 

Bach’s E minor Partita received a rich, commanding performance, of similar clarity, its Toccata gathering pace through dynamic counterpoint. There was no question of imitating the harpsichord; this was emphatically piano music, but rethought, never quite as I had heard it before. Likewise the Allemanda and Corrente, splendidly consequent and forthright, more Klemperer than Furtwängler. The former’s harmonic deviations were well served without exaggeration, the latter characterised by a paradoxical vehement insouciance that seemed already to presage Beethoven. The Air had a sense of rightness with which it would have been pointless to argue. A dark, introverted Sarabande and rapt Tempo di Gavotta, whose complexity of form suggested Schumann, prepared the way for a final Gigue finely sprung in conventional and harmonic rhythm, its fugue a climax that itself must climax—and did. 

Schubert’s early E minor Sonata was given in two-movement form, Ólafsson vigorous and, to my mind, quite justified in that preference. Performance is, of course, ultimately the justification or otherwise, with no otherwise here. The first movement’s lilt was as much a harmonic matter as anything else, laying the foundations of all to come, spun from a single thread. Its second movement offered, like its Beethovenian counterpart, a response, albeit here properly one of greater ambiguity.

Beethoven’s E major Sonata, op.109, registered with due contrast, ambiguity and ambivalence replaced with dialectics. Apology was neither required nor received for its difficulty. Its first movement in particular sounded as a synthesis of so many strands in the recital. The following ‘Prestissimo’ plunged us back to earth in battle royal, unrelenting in the best sense. Balm, not snake oil, was the mission, movingly fulfilled, of the theme to the finale. There was consolation to be felt here, but there were no easy answers. Again, haunting from the previous works could be heard, fancifully or not: Beethoven taking Schubert at his word in the first variation and Bach in the second, emboldening himself – and us – to take directions that could only be his. (This is not intended in any sense to suggest influence, but rather the coherence and meaning of programme and performance.) As the variations continued and developed, however challenging the route, thread, guide, and spirit emerged quite unbroken, quietly strengthened. Such is Beethoven and such remains his ethical force.

As an encore, we heard a transcription, Ólafsson’s own, of Bach’s so-called ‘Air on a G-string’, which he had presented to György Kurtág on his hundredth birthday. An act of love, subtly, finely arpeggiated, it was noble, direct, and ravishingly beautiful.

Tamestit/MCO - Bach, Hindemith, Schnittke, and Shostakovich, 2 March 2026

Kammermusiksaal

Bach: Chorale, ‘Von deinen Thron tret’ ich hiermit’, BWV 327
Hindemith: Trauermusik for viola and string orchestra
Bach: The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080: Contrapunctus I and III
Schnittke: Monologue for viola and string orchestra
Bach: The Art of Fugue: Contrapunctus II and IV
Shostakovich, arr. Rudolf Barshai: Chamber Symphony, op.111a
Bach: Chorale Prelude, ‘Von deinen Thron tret’ ich hiermit’, BWV 668

Antoine Tamestit (viola)

Mahler Chamber Orchestra

(My photograph)

The Berlin Philharmonic’s International Chamber Orchestra series, its home in the Philharmonie’s younger sibling, the next-door Kammermusiksaal, always offers a rich and rewarding selection of programmes. This Mahler Chamber Orchestra concert, given with artistic partner, violist Antoine Tamestit, was very much a case in point, music by Bach interspersed with works of lament and mourning by Hindemith, Schnittke, and Shostakovich. Bach of course offers life, death, and the beyond. Here we began and closed with him approaching God’s throne, beseeching the Almighty for hope, forgiveness, and the promise of everlasting life, including a transcription of his deathbed chorale prelude, with the first four Contrapuncti from the Art of Fugue offering a taste, even a banquet, of the music of the spheres. ‘Bach, c’est Bach, comme Dieu c’est Dieu,’ in the words of Berlioz. 

The opening chorale, BWV 327, bears no words in the surviving text and sets a melody associated with the hymn ‘Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir,’ the alternative words given to it by the editors of the Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe. If you were expecting a rousing ‘Old Hundredth’ opening, nothing could have been further from the reality. Instead, front desks only from the string orchestra offered a slow, veiled, vibratoless, Passion-like introduction, soft humming suggesting a congregation, perhaps even of the netherworld. In a sense, it brought together old and new Bach, the speed more Klemperer-like than anything one might hear today, the total lack of vibrato looking back (or so we imagine) to early consorts as well as forward to the present, the difference being that this proved to have been an artistic rather than a dogmatic choice. 

The chorale is quoted in Hindemith’s Trauermusik for George V. The British monarch may not seem the most promising object of a musical tribute, but there have been far worse—before, in Bach’s age, Hindemith’s, and our own. Trauermusik was written on 21 January 1936, following news of the king’s death the night before (as we now know, killed by his physician in order to make the following day’s newspapers). The concert in which Hindemith had been due to play his own viola concerto was cancelled, but this new work, conjured up at Mozartian speed in a BBC office for the occasion, was given in a broadcast instead, with the same performers: Hindemith, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Adrian Boult. I have not especially warmed to the piece before – indeed, last time I heard it, I found it rather dull – so was delighted to find myself far more involved this time around, no doubt on account of the excellent performance from Tamestit and the MCO. The effect of the ‘new’ orchestral sound was of coming into ‘modern’ focus that yet intangibly built upon Bach. The four brief movements were dignified, at times passionate, yet never lachrymose, always guided by melody, harmonic rhythm, and their combination. This was recognisably the world of Mathis der Maler, with Bach’s chorale (which Hindemith was unaware had not set the words printed in the BGA) sounding as a reminiscence of the world in which it had been set as well, obviously, as of Bach. Played initially with low – not no – vibrato and gradually intensifying, it imparted a sense not only of coming ‘up to date’ but also of a life gathering force until its close, at which the music duly receded. 

Contrapunctus I followed, each of the Art of Fugue pieces given by four solo strings, Tamestit one of them. Each begins in a different voice, this therefore initiated by the ‘second’ violin (actually, front desk first violinist, but not leader) Alexandra Preucil, to which Matthew Truscott soon responded as ‘first’. It was interesting, even before the entry of viola and cello, to note how different the two violinists’ playing was: not in any sense predictably so, but in response and complement. In a sense, it offered a microcosm of a concert in which nothing was taken for granted. This was warm, intelligent, unaffected playing, in which the illusion of the music ‘speaking for itself’ could readily be believed in, though it offered subtle insight aplenty as soon as one listened, just as in, say, music from the ‘Golden Age’ of vocal polyphony. The following fugue sounded as if a long-range ‘answer’, which in a way it is. Procedural relationships were clad in both flesh and the emotions that attend it. It was deeply involving and affecting. 

Like Contrapunctus III, Schnittke’s 1989 Monologue begins with a viola line, albeit against a backdrop of orchestral second violins and violas. Written for Yuri Bashmet, it is as well that it has been taken up by other violists, since we are unlikely to hear Bashmet in the ‘West’ for the foreseeable future. Tamestit, in any case, had nothing to fear from comparisons, leading a performance it was not difficult to think ‘definitive’ (however vain the idea), every note being made to count without a hint of pedantry. The piece’s darkness was apparent; so too was the happenstance of kinship with Hindemith, at least in initial retrospection, though its ghostliness extended, as one might expect, far further. Indeed, it offered a kind of bridge between Hindemith and Shostakovich. If sometimes I had doubts about the quality of the material ‘itself’, performance rendered such doubts, as it were, more or less immaterial. 

Bach returned for Contrapunctus II and IV. No such doubts here, of course, the extraordinary, unanswerable invention and integrity of harmony and counterpoint reminding us once again of Berlioz’s dictum. What struck me on coming to the fourth was how the player first intoning the subject had apparently taken the lead for the way in which the fugue would be played as a whole: not, of course, that this had not been playing of mutual responsiveness, but that it had rightly made its mark (just as voicing would necessarily do so on the piano). Chromaticism naturally offered its own seasoning. 

Rudolf Barshai’s Chamber Symphony arrangement of Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet has long been admired, not least by Shostakovich himself. It sounded here in no way as if it were ‘merely’ an arrangement, but rather as if it were what had always been intended. Moreover, it would be difficult to imagine a better or more committed performance than that we heard from the MCO, Tamestit in its ranks on the first viola desk. The opening ‘Largo’ seemed, perhaps inevitably, to speak to our current predicament, little more than two days after the shocking attack on Iran. It was sad, bleak even, but human. Detail and the longer line were unerringly drawn, contributing to one another. The second movement as hysterical outburst knocked Schnittke into distant second place, its astonishing string playing further vindication of Barshai’s work. Capturing letter and spirit to perfection, the third movement performance moved from initial innocence to something lunging and sardonic; for once, comparison with Mahler did not seem beside the point. The weird after-life of this ‘Allegretto’ seemed more like hell on earth. For the two remaining ‘Largo’ movements, the first lament was icy yet warm, briefly brought into a winter sun that was swiftly banished; the second, kindred in spirit, also performed its function of quasi-cyclical return. Even for someone such as I who is not in general Shostakovich’s greatest fan, this was haunting music and haunting music-making. 

And so, to Bach’s final work, the last of the ‘Leipzig chorales’, moving effortlessly in true Bachian fashion from organ to strings, binding together the programme in various ways, not least since it was also the chorale with which Bach closed but not completed The Art of Fugue (albeit under the name ‘Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein’), allegedly on his deathbed. Hindemith was, of course, unaware that Bach had always used a different melody for the chorale that he included in his work. This true ‘Von deinen Thron’ therefore effected a kind of historical as well as aesthetic reconciliation, albeit of a properly complex variety. I have simplified the above, perhaps to the extent of distortion, for which please accept apologies if necessary. There was no distortion and certainly no need for apology, though, in the profoundly moving music-making that concluded this outstanding concert. The whole string orchestra, Tamestit included, gave an intimate, unveiled performance of ultimate integrity, reminding us that Bach offers as close to ein’ feste Burg as we shall come in this life: not in stoicism, which may or may not be all we have, but in faith.

Stefanovich - ‘Labyrinth’: Bach, Kurtág, Debussy, and Liszt, 19 February 2026

 

Milton Court

Bach: Capriccio on the departure of a beloved brother, BWV 992
Kurtág: Eight Piano Pieces, op.3; Játékok: ‘La fille aux cheveux de lin – enragée’
Debussy: ‘La fille aux cheveux de lin’
Kurtág: Játékok: ‘Birthday Elegy for Judit – for the second finger of her left hand’. ‘Apple Blossom’
Liszt: Nuages gris, S 199; Unstern! S 208
Kurtág: Játékok: ‘Adoration, Adoration, Accursed Desolation’, ‘Dolna’
Debussy: ‘Des pas sur la neige’, Études: ‘pour les huit doigts’, ‘pour les arpèges composés’
Kurtág: Játékok: ‘Objet trouvé’, Twelve microludes, ‘Antiphony in F-sharp’, ‘Les adieux (in Janáčeks Manier)’
Bach: The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080: Contrapunctus I
Kurtág: Játékok: ‘Ligatura y’
Bach: The Art of Fugue: Contrapunctus XIV
Kurtág: Játékok: ‘Pantomime’

Tamara Stefanovich (piano)  

Images: Ed Maitland Smith

György Kurtág is the last man standing of the 'postwar avant garde': not merely standing, but writing too. Elliott Carter’s late period was unprecedented, a regular source of wonder, but even he did not write two operas in his nineties, the second, Die Stechardin, to be premiered in Budapest on the first full day of his second century. For the centenary itself, cities across the world offered thanks and celebration. London’s response was offered in typically imaginative form by Tamara Stefanovich. 

Bach’s music has proved a lodestar for Kurtág’s creative life, whether in his piano transcriptions or deeper intellectual and emotional influence upon his own ‘original’ compositions. It was fitting, therefore, that he should feature so prominently in this finely constructed programme. The first piece, the early Capriccio on the departure of a beloved brother, might have seemed a strange choice, but its uncharacteristic aspects reminded us quite how adventurous, even avant-gardist Bach was, how broad his terms of reference were, and how he could confound as much as any other composer. Stefanovich played up its character, especially at the outset, not least in the instrumental – in more than one sense – role of ornaments. It might almost have been a work by a French. Navigating a fine line between harpsichord terraced dynamics and piano shading, she showed not only how one need not choose, but how the interaction both on a local and a more sectional level could contribute to form and, in this unusual case, programmatic narrative. As it progressed, its chromaticism truly told: melting yet directed, in almost Mozartian fashion. Bachian joy in extravert, major mode was just as apparent and felt. Bells pealed, horns called, the labyrinth that gave its name to the recital as a whole deepened: here was a mini-recital in itself as well as a curtain-raiser of blazing originality. 

Taken attacca, Kurtág’s bagatelle-like Eight Piano Pieces, op.3, now sixty years old, emerged in similarly declamatory, expressive, and original fashion. They formed a coherent whole, whilst exuding individual character of their own, contrast, complement, and dialectical mediation between what had passed before a guiding thread through this section of the labyrinth. Given the authority of the piano playing, one could readily take its virtuosity for granted, but of course one should not; not only was it laudable in itself, it is a key aspect to Kurtág’s exploration of his instrument, just as would be the case in Bach, Debussy or Liszt. Though Kurtág could not have known them at this time, Boulez’s Notations sounded as if a reference point, albeit distilled into still more starkly concentrated form. Webern was doubtless a crucial mediator here. 

Pairing of Debussy and Kurtág’s ‘Fille aux cheveux de lin’ pieces likewise ensued with the inevitability – and initial serendipity – of a fine pairing of food and wine. A barrage of coughing from all quarters was unfortunate, to put it mildly, but the emergence of Debussy’s understated radicalism, through Stefanovich’s endlessly variegated piano line, from within the world of Kurtág suggested a performance very much for this programme; had the programming been otherwise so would the programming, which is just as it should be. Kurtág in turn seemed to prepare the way in musical transformation for the more overtly world of late Liszt. The Venetian haze of Nuages gris was now tinged with further shadows cast and faintly dappled light shed by Kurtág and Debussy. So much twentieth- and even twentieth-first-century music is rooted in this strange, twilit world, yet that should not lead us to overlook its more formal, generative legacy. There was little chance of doing so here, no more than in a post-Mephistophelian performance of Unstern! Collective rhetoric harnessed to musical ends, the notes seemed to extend in all directions, Liszt the seer momentarily elevated. 

Returning to the world of Játékok, or perhaps better that world renewed, Kurtág very much created his own world in a few notes from those ashes, Webern again the principal, though far from the only, ghost at the feast. The combination of insistence and fantasy in, say, ‘Dolna’ suggesting distillation of Bach’s Capriccio into a fleeting yet unmistakeably tangible essence. Falling back into Debussy in an archlike form reminiscent of Kurtág’s beloved Bartók, the recital brought us steps in the snow without hammers followed by a pair of Études to remind us that ‘technique’, both as composition and performance, can and should be just as ‘poetic’ and thrilling as anything else. A succession of further Kurtág miniatures seemed, like the music of his forebears, to extend the piano keyboard and its capabilities before our eyes and ears. Every twist of the kaleidoscope brought a statement both consequent and new, the spectre of Ligeti listening, nodding, and, I think, smiling. 

Then to Bach’s Art of Fugue, perhaps as far removed in character as well as chronology from the opening Capriccio. The relationship between freedom and organisation is always complex, whether in Bach, Kurtág, Debussy, Liszt, or others—or indeed in performance. Yet the absolute ‘rightness’ of what we heard here, even if it could readily be heard otherwise, seemed perfectly suited to Bach’s testament, its first Contrapunctus both prepared by all that had preceded it and a cleansing, nourishing sorbet. Dignified and directed, its harmony and counterpoint were in excellent balance. Kurtág’s ‘Ligatura y’ seemed in its way to mirror Bach by way of Webern and Messiaen, in turn preparing the way for the crowning glory of the unfinished Contrapunctus XIV, symmetry and development indivisible—until the labyrinthine thread broke off: silence! Kurtág’s ‘Pantomime’ proved the perfect, Beckettian response in near-silence of its own. As Simon Rattle remarked of the composer’s Stele, it is ‘a gravestone on which the entire history of European music is written’. Yet Kurtág, this recital reminded us, is alive—and writing.

Salzburg Mozartwoche (2) – Apkalna: Mozart, Bach, Vasks, and Pärt, 23 January 2026

Grosser Saal, Mozarteum, Salzburg, 23.1.2025 (MB)

Mozart: Suite in C major, KV 399: ‘Ouverture’
Bach: Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582
Peteris Vasks: Viatore
Mozart: Masonic Funeral Music, KV 477, arr. Heribert Brauer
Arvo Pärt: Trivium
Bach: Partita no.2 in D minor for solo violin, BWV 1004: Chaconne, arr. Matthias Keller

Image: Wolfgang Liebacher

Mozart famously named the ‘king of all instruments’ in a letter to his father of 1777, though somewhat oddly one encounters the phrase more often with ‘queen’ in German—as in the title given to this Mozart Week recital by Iveta Apkalna. We are all gender fluid now, I suppose, and it is not as if ‘monarch’ would work any better in German, given the distinction between der Monarch and die Monarchin. Perhaps it was a little surprising not to hear here the works Mozart wrote for mechanical organ, especially given the festival’s focus on Mozart’s last year, but Apkalna came up with an enterprising programme of her own. I cannot share enthusiasm for the ‘holy minimalism’ of Peteris Vasks and Arvo Pärt, though again I tried, but all works on offer received due advocacy on Hermann Eule’s 2010 ‘Propter-Homines-Orgel’. 

The ’Ouverture’ to Mozart’s fragmentary C major Suite is generally encountered on the piano, whether modern or ‘period’, but Apkalna showed us there is no reason it should not be played on the organ. The simple act of listening to it like thus brought home correspondences with those late organ works that might otherwise be missed, but I suspect it was Apalkna’s performance too. The Suite’s other movements are more ingratiating and to my mind successful too, but this shows the devotee of Bach and Handel – Bach particularly in this movement – grappling with their keyboard legacy in well-nigh pastiche form. Certain suspensions and other harmonic touches gave a little more of the game away, though fewer than one might imagine. 

Bach’s great C minor Passacaglia should sweep all before it, and did so here in a performance of laudable inevitability, detail and form conspiring to offer a deeply moving experience. Registration and manual changes clarified structure, but also contributed to a sense of the character of each variation, the final fugue emerging as crowning glory on this crowned head of instruments. In an age in which, as Adorno lamented even in 1950, Bach is so often robbed of emotional and intellectual content, let alone grandeur, it was very good to welcome back the composer who inspired Mozart and so many others.

Vasks’s Viatore opens with a slow, repetitive melody that eventually changes over a long pedal note, which then cedes to a slow-moving line on another manual. Some material seemed strongly to echo the Passacaglia theme, a coincidence that was surely deliberate in programming. There was no gainsaying the commitment of the performance, but the work’s repetitions soon palled; the longer it went on, the less there was to show. Eventually, it stopped. I could not help but think I should have preferred an actual improvisation rather than vague mood music that suggested one. At least it was not aggressively tedious in the manner of Pärt’s Trivium. The composer’s devotees will doubtless tell us that is the point, or one is not listen properly, one is soulless, and so on. Whatever… Inconsequential triads repeated themselves over and over, occasional relief offered by registration changes and relative dissonance. I suppose ‘AI’ would do this sort of thing now, fifty years on. 

A skilful arrangement by Heribert Brauer of Mozart’s Masonic Funeral Music fell in between: an oasis of genuine intellectual and emotional involvement, by a composer who saw only identity between Christian faith and membership of the Craft, famously writing to Leopold, shortly before the latter’s death, that death was the true goal of existence, the best and truest friend of mankind. No one would mistake this arrangement for the original, opening use of the swell pedal making that abundantly clear, but that is not the point; this captured much of its spirit and again served to highlight connections with Mozart’s writing for organ, as well as with Bach. 

It was to Bach we returned for the final piece on the programme, Matthias Keller’s arrangement of the D minor Chaconne. The element of tour de force inherent not only in the original, but also, in very different ways, in the piano transcriptions by Brahms and Busoni, was perhaps not so apparent here, but there is by contrast a case to be made for occasional ‘normalisation’ too, like a less outrageous – much less outrageous – contribution to the school of Stokowski. Again, registration coloured the variations nicely, in a performance that gave a fine account both of piece and instrument. As an encore, we heard another Bach arrangement, this time a grateful, graceful version of the aria known in English as ‘Sheep may safely graze’.

Tally of concerts attended 2025

 

No question whatsoever whose year 2025 was: both in his first placing by a country mile and even in the composers who followed him, many with strong associations to him. That latter point must in itself say something about Boulez's influence both on musical life and thinking in general and on my interests in particular. The other major centenary, that of Berio, fared substantially less well: not, I think, what we should have been likely to expecr even 20 years ago. Why that might be is not immediately obvious, at least to me, but it is surely worth considering.

(As ever, one composer appearance in a concert scores; no further performances in that concert do.)

13 Boulez

5 Debussy, Mahler

4 Bach, Ravel, Stravinsky

3 Beethoven, Chopin, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert

2 Berg, Cage, Carter, Dvořák, Mendelssohn, Liszt

1 John Adams, Eduardo Aguilar, Julian Anderson, Benjamin Attahir, Bartók, Orlando Bass, Georg Anton Benda, Berio, Birtwistle, Brahms, Britten, Bruckner, John Casken, Layale Chaker, Anthony Cheung, Peter Maxwell Davies, Anthony Davis, James Dillon, Marcel Dupré, Giovanni Gabrieli, Helen Grime, John Harbison, Hasse, Henze, Simon Holt, Eva-Maria Houben, Dorothy Howell, Janáček, Golfam Khayam, Kurtág, Lachenmann, Ligeti, Ursula Mamlok, Philippe Manoury, Colin Matthews, Cassandra Miller,  Messiaen, Farnaz Modarresifar, Karl von Ordonnez, Purcell, Daniel Purcell, Respighi, Roussel, Kareem Roustom, Saariaho, Schoeck, Schoenberg, Schumann, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Stockhausen, Strauss, Varèse, Claude Vivier, Weber, Webern, Weill, Austin Wulliman

Horton - Chopin and Bach, 29 October 2025

Wigmore Hall

Chopin: Prelude in C-sharp minor, op.45
Bach: English Suite no.2 in A minor, BWV 807
Chopin: Waltz in A minor, op.34 no.2; Fantasy in F minor, op.49; Polonaise in C-sharp minor, op.26 no.1; Polonaise in E-flat minor, op.26 no.2; Mazurka in B major, op.63 no.1; Mazurka in F minor, op.63 no.2; Mazurka in C-sharp minor, op.63 no.3; Polonaise-fantaisie in A-flat major, op.61

Tim Horton (piano)

Tim Horton’s Wigmore Hall residency, in which he presents Chopin’s music alongside important predecessors, contemporaries, and successors, has reached Bach, offering the second English Suite and an illuminating Chopin selection. The C-sharp minor Prelude – Chopin’s, not Bach’s – opened and proceeded in a way that set the tone for the entire recital: both muscular and melting, clarity and direction likewise two sides to the same musical coin. The notes mattered, and one felt that; so too did Chopin’s harmonic surprises. Not for the last time here, without necessarily sounding Lisztian, the playing made one keen to hear Horton’s Liszt. At the opposite end of the first half, the A minor Waltz, op.34 no.2, explored its tonality with a sadness emerging from its material, rather than applied to it, and thus all the stronger for it. Rubato here, as elsewhere, was unexaggerated yet telling. Chopin’s harmonic transformations and much else stood in Bach’s line, whilst remaining ineffably the composer’s own. 

In between came the English Suite, its A minor presaging the Waltz. This was not Chopinesque Bach as such; it had its own validity. It was, though, a validity that drew connections and created a properly satisfying musical programme, reminding us that Bach’s may be the greatest piano music of all (with absolutely no apology to devotees of other keyboard instruments). The Prelude, rhythms tightly sprung, offered a fine framework for melodic and harmonic exploration and expression, striking an excellent balance between dynamic contrasts that were of the moment and structurally conceived, in fact showing the distinction ultimately to be illusory. Following its relative extraversion, the Allemande turned inwards, again relatively speaking, leading to a Courante that was both robust and subtle, its lineage unmistakeably French, albeit with equally unmistakeable German colouring and grounding. A beautifully dignified, even luxuriant Sarabande led us into the harmonic labyrinth, but also guided us through it. The Bourrées and Gigue offered both intensification and release, just as they should. 

The F minor Fantasy, op.49, opened the second half, inheriting and extending the recital’s preceding virtues, whilst delineating this piece’s decidedly particular character and form. Echoes of Schumann, however fleeting, registered clearly in a musical kaleidoscope that again, if not exactly Lisztian, was not exactly un-Lisztian either. This music can readily fall apart when presented according to pre-conceived structural ideas that are not Chopin’s; not so here, quite the contrary. The two op.26 Polonaises and the were eloquently presented in relation to one another, harmonic foundations key to that conception. The anger and grief of the latter, in E-flat minor, spoke with a sensibility it was difficult not to think tragic, albeit finely differentiated. (But then, is not Hamlet?) I found it deeply moving. 

So too were the three op.63 Mazurkas, similarly conceived as a set, yet ever alert to individual qualities. A particularly Chopinesque sadness to the second contrasted with and in its way confirmed both the well-sprung first and the syncretic, unifying qualities of the third. Counterpoint and harmony, as with Bach, were indivisible. The Polonaise-fantaisie is not my favourite Chopin, but this attentively painted performance had me listen and, I fancied, understand its structure as rarely before. Unfailingly eloquent, it unfolded both on its own terms and in light of what had gone before. As Jim Samson points out in his typically excellent programme note, examination of Chopin’s sketches shows that Chopin was ‘really composing a Fantasy, similar in conception and even in tonal organisation to the other Fantasy performed thius evening, and that he added the polonaise rhythm … to the principal melody as an afterthought.’ Compositional origins sounded here with musical immanence. As an encore, we heard a characteristic op.9 no.2 Nocturne, direct and sensitive in equal measure. Once again, I look forward to future instalments in this fascinating series.

Piemontesi, Schubert and Liszt, 9 May 2025

Wigmore Hall

Schubert: Fantasy in C major, D 605a, ‘Graz’
Schubert: Four Impromptus, D 935
Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor, S 178

Francesco Piemontesi (piano)

  

Francesco Piemontesi offered a series of surprises, none unwelcome, in this fine Wigmore Hall recital of music by Schubert and Liszt. No piece was taken for granted, though by the same token, none was remoulded for the sake of remoulding. An array of possibilities was brought to life through exquisite command of touch and formidable foundation of intellect. 

The so-called ‘Graz’ Fantasy, D 605a, made for an excellent, even spellbinding opening. I was immediately put in mind of an observation by Donald Tovey on the piano music of Liszt, that it showed – irrespective of its musical quality – he was incapable of making an ugly sound on the keyboard.  Simple C major arpeggios sounded as if they were the rarest things in the world, the fifth bar’s flattened submediant piercing as perhaps only Schubert can. The first section as a whole emerged as something akin to a threshold for pianistic Romanticism, its fantasia quality, harking back to Mozart and beyond, in gradual self-revelation. The alla polacca music, in a typically distant – as distant as one can be – F-sharp major was delightfully quirky, dancing as if it were early Chopin. As the music became more involved, Piemontesi’s performance was never cluttered; here, as elsewhere, there was always space, irrespective of tempo, whose fundamental qualities always endured. The serenity with which opening material returned was deeply touching. 

The advent of the first of four impromptus, that in F minor, felt like the opening of a new chapter: not exactly presaged by the Fantasy, yet foretold. This was, of course, a different Schubert, from the close of his all-too-brief compositional life; and yet, without contrivance, it was also the same Schubert, similarly spun from the finest of Egyptian cotton, if that is not to undersell. There was something dream-like, though not too dream-like, to the piece’s progression, to the emergence of music that had somehow always been there, waiting simply to be voiced as a song without words. Its ambivalence and the pain of return to the tonic could hardly have been more movingly conveyed. Perhaps the second impromptu, the A-flat Allegretto, was a little understated, a little too innig; or perhaps that was simply a matter of taste. There was no doubting its lyricism, nor that of the B-flat theme and variations, Piemontesi’s disinclination to make a meal of it welcome. Subtlety of melodic line, the telling quality of lilt and breath, and the ‘natural’ quality to this music-making, not least in the unexaggerated pathos of the fourth variation, all proved telling. One can overdo the ‘sonata’ designation to these pieces; if Schubert had intended them as such, he would doubtless have said so. Nonetheless, the fourth, returning to F minor, felt very much like a finale: one that foretold Brahms still more than Liszt, taking its leave nonetheless from the world of the Moments musicaux. 

In the introduction to Liszt’s B minor Sonata, Piemontesi seemed determined to show – more to the point, he did – that preconceived oppositions are worth no more than the ether into which they are typed. This music can be taut and rhetorical, if one so chooses, and will most probably benefit from such integrative performance. At any rate, it provided quite the launch pad for the exposition proper, whose initial combination of fury and rhythmic insistence sounded new, not to be compared to previous ‘schools’ of performance. Throughout, decisions that initially had me wonder provided their own confirmation, for instance the continued insistent quality for the coming of the second group. Though on a considerably grander scale, the work in context nonetheless emerged as a mercurial, sulphurous successor to the Schubert Fantasy—not that Liszt could have known it, undiscovered until 1962. Yet its concision truly told too, Liszt’s Beethovenian side inevitably revealing itself amidst, indeed through, the grandiloquence. Again, there was no sense of being rushed; time seemed almost to stand still prior to the fugato, which verily bolted, preparing the way inevitably for return. The (certain) uncertainty in aftershock was not the least surprise in what felt like a symphonic poem for, certainly not reduced to, piano. 

Two encores, both again welcome surprises, were a lively account Wilhelm Kempff’s transcription of Bach’s Chorale Prelude, ‘Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme,‘ BWV 645, which built magnificently, and a delectable response in ‘Au lac de Wallenstadt’ from Liszt’s first (Swiss) book of Années de pèlerinage.

Kapelis/Berliner Barock Solisten - Bach, 25 March 2025

Barbican Hall

Piano Concerto no.3 in D major, BWV 1054
Piano Concerto no.4 in A major, BWV 1055
Piano Concerto no.1 in D minor, BWV 1052
Piano Concerto no.2 in E major, BWV 1053
Piano Concerto no.5 in F minor, BWV 1056
Piano Concerto no.7 in G minor, BWV 1058

Berliner Barock Solisten

Alexandros Kapelis (piano)

Six out of the seven Bach keyboard concertos: a tall order by any standards, and in practice probably better suited to recording than live performance, or at least spit between a couple of concerts, interspersed with other works (and/or maybe multiple soloists, even instruments). Indeed, it came as little surprise to read that Alexandros Kapelis and the Berliner Barock Solisten have indeed recorded these works, plus the missing BWV 1057. Still, it was not the first and will not be the last concert to present more of a CD than a concert programme, and I chose to go, curious to see what would come of the idea.

Putting aside, insofar as one can, the programming, how then did it turn out? Perhaps inevitably, my experience was mixed, the second half to my ears generally stronger than the first. (There is nothing unusual about that in a solo piano recital or many other concerts.) Perhaps the biggest problem for me was a general uniformity of approach, especially during the first half. If one is going to programme this way, one surely needs to consider what makes these works different from one another and communicate that—as well, doubtless, as what they hold in common. The D major Concerto, BWV 1054, set a pattern for much of what was to come, its first movement bright and bouncy, piano playing less distinct – perhaps in part a matter of acoustics – than that of the strings, although here and elsewhere Kapelis’s trills were very much to be enjoyed. 

What I missed even in isolation, and despite gravely beautiful playing from the Berlin strings in the slow movement, was a sense either of chamber music or of the pianist leading, let alone of interplay or tension between the two. The small orchestra (4.3.2.2.1), led by Daniele Gaede, pretty much did its own thing and Kapelis played along. Might a conductor have helped? Perhaps. Not that the orchestra needed it, but perhaps a conductor would have helped connect the soloist with them. Moreover, it was the orchestra, more than the pianist, that tended to vary its approach, the second slow movement (BWV 1055) more austere, somewhat ‘period’ in tone. 

It was definitely Steinway rather than Bösendorfer playing and certainly seemed to be conceived for the piano. (Why would you play Bach on the piano only to try to make it sound like the harpsichord, in which endeavour you will certainly fail?) In the D minor Concerto, BWV 1052, there were some distinctly odd passages, violin imitation/derivation in the first movement sounding merely heavy, whilst the second often seemed listless, a relatively swift tempo notwithstanding. The third movement nonetheless sprang to life, mostly maintaining that impetus. There were even, much to the music’s benefit, a few signs of Kapelis actually leading proceedings. 

The outer movements of BWV 1053 in E major largely maintained that shift of gear. The first was impressively variegated and well-articulated. There was a sense both of air behind the sails—and of high-quality sails too. I suspect it was no coincidence that the orchestra sounded more committed too. There was a better approach to chamber music in the Siciliano, even if usually of piano listening to and following the strings rather than of true give-and-take. When it came to solo passages, though, Kapelis’s playing was oddly detached, as if embarrassed to sound ‘Romantic’. The two final concertos mostly followed that pattern, with noticeable springs in the step for outer movements, the finales admirably vigorous. The slow movement of BWV 1058 was notably more successful, offering greater continuity and some genuinely lovely playing, than its counterpart in BWV 1056: oddly choppy, both at the time and as an encore.

Still, there was a large audience at the Barbican, many of whom will surely have been hearing some or all of these works for the first time. If I had reservations about some aspects of the performances, there was also much to enjoy. Further acquaintance with Bach’s music is rarely, if ever, anything but time well spent.  

Levit - Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven, 27 September 2024

Royal Festival Hall

Bach: Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor, BWV 903
Brahms: Four Ballades, op.10
Beethoven-Liszt: Symphony no.7 in A major, op.92, S 464/7

Igor Levit (piano)

The Royal Festival Hall can seem too large for a solo piano recital. It needs a pianist to fill it, which, as anyone acquainted with the monstrous Royal Albert Hall will testify, is more a matter of drawing one in to listen than of external projection. Fortunately, Igor Levit showed himself fully able to do so, in a fascinating programme, given without an interval, of Bach, Brahms and Beethoven, the latter arranged by Liszt. 

A highly declamatory opening to Bach’s Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue presented it unabashedly as ‘Steinway music’. Equally noteworthy, though, was the sense of its chromaticism, of all twelve notes of the chromatic scale coming into play. Not for nothing did Schoenberg call Bach the first twelve-note composer. This was not simply a matter of Bach, but of Levit too, inviting us to immerse ourselves in melodies, harmonies, in the workings of Bach’s modulatory tonal plan, both in a properly improvisatory fantasia and in a fugue whose subject emerged tenderly, wandering, to build and ultimately find resolution. Featherlight, almost Mendelssohnian playing combined with grander rhetorical delivery, as composer and pianist patiently and capriciously combined the learned and the mercurial. 

Twilight, experienced in certain Bach passages, characterised much, though not all, of the Four Ballades, op.10, of Brahms, one of its greatest kindred spirits. The first, in D minor, proved gravely beautiful, Ossianic in spirit, with tantalising hints already (1854) of the Schoenbergian future. Its rhetoric became surprisingly (yet faithfully) Lisztian before withdrawing into the shadows. In its D major sibling, it was Chopin’s turn to be revealed, not as an eccentric visiting stranger, but summoned from Brahms’s own material. It was an intimate, at times almost diffident portrait that led to more ardent, Schumannesque Romanticism. The B minor Intermezzo sounded in context as if its predecessor had been turned inside out, in a strange, Gothic transformation, only to turn itself inside out subsequently. All three seemed in some way to prepare the way for the fourth, in B major, a more mature Brahmsian butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. There was a deeper sadness here, which one might compare to Chopin, but which was in reality very much Brahms’s own. If there was a reluctance to fly freely in the sun, that was perhaps as much composer’s as the pianist’s. It was a markedly interior vision, which some may have felt a little too introverted, but I found it compelling. 

Liszt’s Beethoven symphony transcriptions are fascinating tributes, which take a peculiar combination of talents and insights to bring alive. The piano can of course only imitate the orchestra, but in some cases that can be a good thing. After all, one thing an orchestra cannot do is imitate an orchestra; it can only be one, at least before the later twentieth century. Here we heard the Seventh Symphony, which Levit gave (rightly, I think) as a symphony on the piano, not a sonata manqué. The chords announcing the first movement’s introduction necessarily sound different; Levit relished that difference with ear-catching detached playing, recapturing an element of surprise. And yet, thereafter, there was an increasingly Lisztian (and sustained) sound and style to chords and octaves, propelling us toward the exposition, whose provenance became unusually clear. The movement developed and returned as it should, yet heard anew. If anything, the coda sounded all the more of Weber’s ‘madhouse’. 

Even on the piano, the opening chord of the second movement sounded grey as the North Sea. It was given relatively swiftly, the marking Allegretto taken at Beethoven’s (disputed) word, without sounding rushed. Indeed, one felt as well as observed the processional element at work in all its multifarious glory—and dignity. Line was maintained throughout, and we were treated at times to just a little – a Goldilocks amount of – Lisztian grandiloquence. The ghostly quality to the fugato was spot on, making me keen to hear Levit in the third movement (and the rest) of the Fifth. Remarkable in its pianistic success, the scherzo’s performance was founded on great virtuosity that was nonetheless a mere beginning, a necessary given. Its Tiggerish quality and propulsion almost had one regret that Beethoven did not offer yet another reprise. The Trio relaxed, as of old, the Austrian pilgrims’ hymn truly felt as well as heard. 

It took my ears a little while to adjust for the finale: probably the most difficult movement to bring off, whether from orchestra or piano. I have heard some horribly merciless renditions, incomprehensibly praised, which have sacrificed the humanity without which Beethoven is traduced. Levit showed that one can have a thrilling ride, imbued with Lisztian spirit, which will ultimately grow into Beethoven’s too. His choice of encore was perfect, both in itself and for highlighting the contrast between Beethoven arranged for the piano and the composer’s own piano writing. The Adagio cantabile from the ‘Pathétique’ Sonata wedded lyrical impulse to Haydnesque roots in a performance at least as moving as anything heard previously.

St Matthew Passion, Deutsche Oper, 29 March 2024

Evangelist – Kieran Carrel
Jesus – Padraic Rowan
Bass – Joel Allison
Tenor, False Witness – Kangyoon Shine Lee
Petrus, High Priest, Pontifex II – Youngkwang Oh
Pilatus, Judas, Pontifex I – Artur Garbas
Soprano, First Maid – Siobhan Stagg
Alto, False Witness, Second Maid – Annika Schlicht
Girl – Zoé Höchse
Friend – Selina Nüsse

Director – Benedikt von Peter
Revival directors – Eva-Maria Abelein, Matteo Marziano Graziano
Set designs – Natascha von Steiger
Costumes – Lene Schwind
Video – Bert Zander
Lighting – Roland Edrich
Dramaturgy – Dorothea Hartmann

Children’s and Youth Choirs of the Deutsche Oper (director: Christian Lindhorst)

Youth Choir of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Children’s Choir of the Aalto-Theatre, Essen (director: Patrik Jaskolka)

Chorus of the Deutsche Oper (director: Jeremy Bines)

Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper

Alessandro De Marchi (conductor)

Images: Marcus Lieberenz

Had someone told me I should be attending performances of the two Bach Passions on consecutive evenings, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, in Leipzig and Berlin, my first reaction might have been of scepticism, followed by reflection that this could not fail to be a Holy Week to remember. And indeed, it has not failed, neither in that nor in any other respect. However, had I then been told that I should find a staged performance in an opera house considerably more involving, not only thought-provoking, than a concert in the Thomaskirche, my reaction might have turned to something a little stronger than scepticism. Yet so it came to pass. I had little idea what to expect, though memories of Deborah Warner’s Messiah for the English National Opera (remember them?) continue to cast a baleful shadow. There might have been common ground, in that the Deutsche Oper’s production claimed to share a concern for ‘community’. Yet whereas, in London, that had been an unfortunate buzzword, here community involvement, not only from five choirs, amateur and professional, but also from a Berlin (and beyond) public that seemed to go beyond the typical, nonetheless broad opera audience, as well as both intelligently considering what community the work might construct and questioning what that might mean in an increasingly secular society. 

Benedikt von Peter’s staging, a co-production with Theater Basel, was first seen in Berlin last year. Here, in one of its first revival performances, it attracted a large audience both in the traditional auditorium and in additional seating onstage. Or perhaps that should be congregation, as we were addressed in the titles; we were given the music for two chorales to sing too: ‘Was mein Gott will,’ and ‘O Haupt von Blut und Wunden’. The production is in many ways, especially during the first part, quite straightforward. That works to its advantage once critical possibilities are voiced; they are grounded in something that has arisen, it seems, rather than having arisen from initial antagonism. Its spatial-conceptual framework would seem to have developed collaboratively from discussions between the director and conductor Alessandro De Marchi, doubtless dramaturge Dorothea Hartmann too. The two orchestras are on stage, either side of the space in which the production plays out. The conductor is at the front of the stalls, and the choirs are positioned around the auditorium in the shape of the Cross, an arrangement, we are told, modelled on an expansion of the separation of forces between altar and ‘swallow’s nest’ gallery. It certainly helps break boundaries between performers and audience, rendering us all in some sense congregants—whilst maintaining the possibility of different levels of engagement according to belief or inclination.

 

Members of the Children’s Choir of the Deutsche Oper carry the Cross onstage in the monumental opening chorus. I have heard it both more and less monumental. This was not, thank God, a dogmatic performance, De Marchi showing himself commendably pragmatic: all too much a rarity, alas, in today’s ‘authenticke’ world. If its tempo was fast, at least to my ears, it was not absurdly so; nor was there whining rigidity. Klemperer’s approach would, after all, neither have suited the occasion and forces, nor doubtless the conductor’s inclination, any more than something more objectionable. Once past a little discrepancy between orchestras – eminently forgivable in the circumstances – one felt drawn in to the greatest of all (music) dramas: visually, aurally, aesthetically, and yes observantly. Children act out the Passion, with overtones of Oberammergau, as it is musically enacted by the adults, the Evangelist in particular assuming the role of their instructor. Thus we see ‘disciples’ leave a little boy alone, tied and blindfolded—as indeed we hear that. But I have missed a stage: before that first chorus, a little girl has read to us from the Book of Isaiah. She appears to be simply reading a lesson, but becomes an increasingly critical voice, shouting to the deserting disciples, albeit to no avail. At the close of the first part, she frees Jesus: out of humanity, not necessarily faith. Indeed, elements of faith continue to trouble her, unable to reconcile her ethics with the economy of salvation. Having been freed, Jesus runs off to join the others, those who had captured him, rather than be comforted by his liberator: a difficult, hurtful act, rich in symbolism. After all, he must; he has no choice in any of this. She returns to the Bible, to read, learn, and think though not necessarily in the way her instructors intend.

 

In the second part, the girl (Zoé Höchse) returns, ever more ‘troublesome’ to the forces of organised religion. She cannot accept what is happening and is eventually banished by the Evangelist. (There is, I think, more than a dash of Greta Thunberg to her.) So too is her friend, and so too are some of the other children, convinced by the rebels’ arguments and understandably unwilling simply to do as they are told. Disturbingly, having remained separate following his trial, Christus briefly takes part in these expulsions too, but we can find ample Scriptural warrant for that, should we wish. By contrast, some of the ‘remaining’ children are elevated to sung as well as visual participation: a couple of them highly impressive as well as touching. As not only tragedy becomes clear but also its truer theological, sacrificial meaning – that of the Cross in whose form the entire drama unfolds – the children who cannot accept it invade the stage with their own, unresolved questions as placards. Epic theatre meets Christian ritual, and ultimately it us for us to decide (or not). Questioning a Bach Passion may seem odd, indeed unwelcome, to many, and surely it would be in a church. In an opera house, though, things are different. It might well not have worked, but it did. 

That was due in no small part, of course, to Da Marchi and his musical forces. The Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper played with great style and sensitivity: not trying to be something they were not, but engaging in a recreation of Bach for today, without ever suggesting they might prefer to be playing Wagner. Indeed, in their obbligato roles, one sensed a moment of musical liberation: how wonderful, it seemed, that for once they could not only play this repertoire, but engage in music theatre of their own. Likewise the massed choral forces, used sparingly together, but voicing drama and reflection from around us, evoking a great basilica as much as Stockhausen. All involved in their direction deserve credit, pastorally as well as musically, this mirroring work and production in practice. One can question some of the musical choices, but that will always be the case in such music; one can still learn from the choices made. I might not choose to use lutes for the continuo, but I greatly appreciated their contribution.

 

Kieran Carrel proved an excellent Evangelist. It is at the best of times a considerable task, emotionally as well as vocally; with additional ‘dramatic’ duties, it became all the more so. Carrel’s understanding and communication of that understanding seemed to gain depth from those challenges, fully engaging with circumstances and their conceptual framework. The same might be said of Padraic Rowan’s Christus, darkly beautiful: strangely, properly remote yet also approachable. The other vocal soloists also all impressed. Battling a cold, Joel Allison nonetheless offered moving accounts of the bass arias; there were only a few occasions when one could tell. Tenor Kangyoon Shine Lee proved at least his match in the tenor arias, finely sculpted line and tone at the service of the text. Siobhan Stagg, Annika Schlicht complemented each other well as soprano and mezzo, offering performances both considered and, so it seemed, dramatically spontaneous. Youngkwang Oh and Artur Garbas impressed similarly in their parts. There really was no weak link, but rather in a true sense a musical community that both constructed and was constructed by Bach’s great Passion and its particular enactment.

Thomanerchor/Reize - Bach, St John Passion, 28 March 2024

St Thomas’s Church, Leipzig

Bach: St John Passion, BWV 245 (first version, 1724)

Elisabeth Breuer (soprano)

Jakub Jósef Orliński (countertenor)

Daniel Johannsen (tenor)

Benjamin Appl (bass: Christus)

Tomáš Král (bass: arias)

Thomanerchor Leipzig

Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

Andreas Reize (conductor)

 

At Good Friday Vespers, 1724, in St Nicholas’s Church, Leipzig, the city’s new Thomaskantor, Johann Sebastian Bach, led the first performance of his St John Passion. Three hundred years later, on Good Friday, Bach’s masterwork will return to the same church, performed by the latest incarnation of the composer’s own choir and an orchestra closely related, conducted by the twelfth successor to Bach as Kantor, Andreas Reize. I attended not that performance, but one the previous evening of Maundy Thursday, at the more customary St Thomas’s; it is close enough, I think, to count, without troubling ourselves with complications of lunar versus solar calendars. (For what little it may be worth, the Gregorian calendar had been in use there for a generation.)

Properly enough, the work was given in Bach’s first version of 1724 (strictly, a reconstruction, the score having been lost). It is not so very different from what we usually hear – considerable revisions were made in 1725, mostly reversed in 1749 – but there are a few interesting differences, all of which (I think) had me sit up and notice. The presence of violas d’amore in place of the later muted violins is a case in point. It would be possible to go on at great length about this, and about changes made in the 1730s too, but this is not the place to do so; nor am I a Bach scholar. Details can readily be found elsewhere. Suffice it to say that one of the biggest changes for 1725, loss of the opening chorus, was, Gott sei Dank, not an issue here. 

And so, yes, we heard those cries ‘Herr, unser Herrscher,’ less piercing than usual, given the strange acoustic (and seating arrangement) of the Thomaskirche. This is a church, not a concert hall; hearing the performance from the organ gallery above, and not seeing it at all is an unusual experience. It took my ears a good while to adjust, and I suspect it took the performers, even those accustomed to the space, a while to do so too, given how differently it operates with a full audience/congregation. (It is worth adding that this was a concert, not a service, although it was briefly introduced by Pastor Martin Hundertmark.) Whether the extremely fast – I have never heard so fast – tempo adopted by Reize made sense in these circumstances, or indeed any, I am sceptical, but the turbulence and imploring nature of this figurative curtain-raiser eventually came across. When we heard the words ‘Zeig uns durch deine Passion’, it felt as though that revelation was indeed being prepared. Moreover, choral diction here and throughout were, not least given the immense challenges, highly commendable. 

Tempi were in general very fast indeed; this is probably the norm now, though I struggle to understand why. Obsessive fear of ‘Romanticism’ rapidly shades into dampening of message—at least for some of us. The exceptions were interesting. For instance, the choral ‘Bist du nicht seiner Jünger einer?’ started slowly and accelerated: it certainly made dramatic sense. The moderate tempo to ‘Sei gegüßet, lieber Jüdenkönig!’ was most welcome too, permitting us to hear orchestral detail, in addition to being verbally and dramatically meaningful. Especially in the second part, a greater sense of harmonic rhythm was imparted to such writing, greatly to its and our advantage. As death neared, there was some sense of transformation, of Johannine predestination working its fatal, necessary way. I wondered whether the lack of bite in the chorus in which the high priests tell Pilate the inscription should read not that Christ was king of the Jews, but that he had said he was, was deliberate, an attempt to draw from a sting that now, for obvious reasons, is received problematically. Dramatically, it seemed a pity, but it is understandable. 

Throughout, the Thomanerchor, on home territory in every sense, impressed in what is doubtless a highlight of its year, yet by the same token is very much part of that church year, reliant on and emerging from weekly cantatas. The small solos drawn from its ranks were excellent too. When Reize and the singers drew attention to particular chorale harmonies, underlining subtle yet unmistakable, the effect and consequences were always welcome. Contrast between chorales was also telling. Whether one cared for Johannes Lang’s elaborate organ, stanza-length interpolations between stanzas, would be a matter of taste; on their own terms, they were highly accomplished. Lang even did something similar, albeit more of a lead-in, for the return to the A section in the opening chorus. 

Daniel Johannsen did an heroic job as both Evangelist and solo tenor. At times, quite ‘operatic’ – the first recitative suggested Loge – his approach was always deeply rooted in the text. The words ‘denn es war kalt’ had due, cold bite, for instance, preparing the way for Peter to warm his hands. Peter’s denial and bitter weeping made their point with heightened drama, the following aria (Johannsen’s also) heard in aftershock, yet with continuing bitterness, something akin to ‘Baroque’ expressionism. Benjamin Appl’s Christus was, unsurprisingly, warmer in tone, the natural bloom of his voice well suited to the part, though it varied too, ‘Siehe ist deine Mutter!’ indicative of weariness in a good sense. Bass soloist Tomáš Král presented a fine contrast and complement, his singing beautifully and meaningfully coloured without mannerism, the arioso ‘Betrachte, meine Seel’ a particular highlight. Jakub Jósef Orliński sounded more at home, at least on this occasion, in his second aria than his first. There was a ‘purity’ to the second that did not preclude intense, inner drama. Elisabeth Breuer’s bell-like soprano was likewise projected more successfully in her second aria; how the dissonances ground on the word ‘Zähren’ in a fine collaboration with the musicians around her. The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra was always supportive, though rarely to the foreground. When its strings had opportunity to show their cultivation, they took it, as in the extraordinary bass number with chorus, ‘Eilt, ihr angefochtnen Seelen’. 

It was, though, principally the choir’s – and Evangelist’s – evening. And above all Bach’s. There is something both indestructible and infinitely adaptable to his music that will perhaps always remain a mystery, though many have attempted explanation. Even in the case of performances and performance ‘styles’ from which one feels personally distanced, it still miraculously speaks. If we are still here in another 300 years, perhaps even if we are not, Bach will endure.

RIAS Choir/Kammerakademie Potsdam/Doyle - Mendelssohn, Hensel, and Bach, 14 March 2024

Kammermusiksaal

Mendelssohn: Psalm 115, ‘Nicht unserm Namen, Herr’, MWV A 9
Fanny Hensel: Hiob
Mendelssohn: Ave Maria, op.23 no.2, MWV B 19
Mendelssohn: Hör mein Bitten, MWV B 49
Bach: Cantata, ‘Die Elenden sollen essen’, BWV 75: Sinfonia to the second part
Mendelssohn: Psalm 114, ‘Da Israel aus Ägypten zog,’ op.51

Anna Prohaska (soprano)

Benjamin Bruns (tenor)

Ludwig Mittelhammer (bass)

RIAS Chamber Choir

Kammerakademie Potsdam

Justin Doyle (conductor)

A delightful and enlightening concert from the RIAS Chamber Choir, Kammerakademie Potsdam, Justin Doyle, and an excellent trio of vocal soloists: focusing on Mendelssohn, but also including a cantata by his sister Fanny Hensel and a sinfonia by the family’s musical house god, Johann Sebastian Bach. Mendelssohn’s setting of verses from the 115^th Psalm was the first of five such large-scale settings he made for soloists, chorus, and orchestra between 1829 and 1844. It revealed almost equally strong influence from Bach and Handel, the latter in particular occasionally Mozartified. Here, as throughout, the RIAS Chamber Choir proved admirable in every respect: warm, clear, faultless in pitch and diction. The second of its three movements, a duet with chorus, whilst not un-Handelian in its way of duetting, was less obviously ‘Baroque’ on the surface. Anna Prohaska and Benjamin Bruns offered a mellifluous performance, bassoons and more generally orchestral wind pleasingly audible. The ensuing bass arioso was, similarly, beautifully taken by Ludwig Mittelhammer, with a closing chorus, its opening a cappella, confirming all preceding choral and orchestral virtues. 

Hensel’s 1831 cantata Hiob (‘Job’) sets three pairs of verses from the Book of Job. Three trumpets, timpani, and an excellent mezzo from the choir joined the orchestra and soloists on stage. Here, especially in the opening chorus, Bach’s influence was still stronger: in woodwind writing, figuration, harmony, chromatic lines, and more. It is not pastiche: there were pleasing instances to be heard of nineteenth-century colour and, again, Mozartian mediation (perhaps, in the final chorus, the Haydn of The Creation too). But Hensel had certainly learned her Bachian lessons well, as well indeed as her brother. The central arioso, ‘Warum verbirgest du dein Anlitz’ employs all four soloists, the mezzo’s opening question responded to by the other three, followed by a brief reprise of the former. A third, choral movement once again revealed highly accomplished harmony and counterpoint, the assembled forces under Doyle’s wise leadership performing this – and the rest – with relish and understanding. 

Mendelssohn’s responsorial Ave Maria for tenor, chorus, and orchestra (here two clarinets, two bassoons, three cellos, and two double basses) from 1827 seems to me less inspired. I am not sure Marian devotion was really his thing, though this is of course also a very early work (if later than the Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture and the Octet). Its central, choral section struck me as more interesting, nimble cello pizzicato offering an uncanny presentiment of the second movement processional from the Italian Symphony. It was, in any case, interesting to hear the piece. 

In the second half, we were in different territory altogether, with far more characteristic Mendelssohn. In the 1844 Hör mein Bitten (or ‘Hear my Prayer’, as most English-speaking listeners will know it), Prohaska brought a welcome sense of drama: not ‘operatic’, but certainly drawing on her rich and varied operatic experience. There were some truly magical passages, not least her sinuous duet with clarinet (partly set against cello pizzicato). With a larger choir and orchestra than one generally hears, as well as increasingly dramatic delivery – overall conception well-shaped indeed – this was worlds away from English cathedral music; it certainly evinced more biting consonants and accompanying verbal meaning. Both have their place, of course, but, closer to a miniature Lobgesang and even to Wagner, here was a splendidly Romantic Mendelssohn, the composer of Elijah and St Paul. 

The Sinfonia to the second part of Bach’s Cantata ‘Die Elenden sollen essen’ received what struck me as a near-ideal performance: warm, cultivated, and welcoming, My only regret was that that was all we heard of the piece. No matter: in Mendelssohn’s 1839 setting of verses from the 114^th Psalm, we had a perfect crown to the concert, surveying in each of its four stanzas a different aspect to the composer’s craft. The integration of Handelian antecedents and the world of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the second proved a joy, but then so did the simpler questioning homophony of the third, and the glorious jubilation (and struggles) of the fourth. ‘Da Israel aus Ägypten zog’ was always likely to bring echoes of Handel’s Israel in Egypt, but Bach remained as strong a guide. Doyle once again led a fine performance, colourful and directed, in which every word as well as every note told.

Mayer/Berliner Barock Solisten/Goltz - JCF Bach, CPE Bach, JS Bach, and Johann Christoph Bach, 11 December 2023

Kammermusiksaal

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach: Sinfonia in D minor, WFV 1/3
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (arr. Albrecht Mayer and Matthias Spindler): Oboe Concerto in G major (after harpsichord concerto, Wq 9)
Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto no.3 in G major, BWV 1048 (early version)
Johann Christoph Bach (arr. Spindler): Lamento: Ach, dass ich Wassers gnug hätte
CPE Bach: Symphony in E-flat major for strings, Wq 122/2
JS Bach: Oboe d’amore concerto in A major, BWV 1055R

Albrecht Mayer (oboe, oboe d’amore, English horn)

Berliner Barock Solisten

Gottfried von der Goltz (violin, director)

It is always time for Bach, likewise for the Bach family, but some times seem still more so than others. Advent is surely one of them, and this Advent seems all the more necessary than ever as a source of hope and light when sorely needed. Here, members of the Berlin Philharmonic, in their guise as the Berliner Barock Solisten, led by violinist Gottfried von der Goltz, were joined by their Philharmonic colleague oboist Albrecht Mayer in a programme of music by Johann Sebastian, two of his sons, and his first cousin once removed, Johann Christoph, described in Sebastian’s 1735 genealogy as ‘ein profonder Componist’. 

First, a fine curtain-raiser: a Sinfonia in D minor by Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, JS Bach’s fifth son and only three years old when his father (we think) compiled that genealogy. This short three-movement symphony probably stood closest to CPE Bach of Bach’s other sons, though without his radicalism/mannerism (delete according to taste). It nonetheless offered invention and the occasional surprise, in more-or-less Sturm und Drang mode. In the opening ‘Allegro’, the ensemble offered cultivated, dramatic playing which, as elsewhere in the programme, rightly saw no need for mere ‘effects’. Committed, communicative musicianship, which recognised and demonstrated both the importance and joy of listening to one another, was enough. The slow movement, ‘Andante amoroso’ was announced in veiled, somewhat astringent intimacy, taking its leave from the director’s muting of his instrument. Its aria-like unfolding also suggested an organ piece; indeed, Goltz’s violin tone had something of a viola da gamba stop to it. Vigour and dynamism characterised a finale that was conceived and felt as such. 

Emanuel Bach’s G major harpsichord concerto was here arranged for oboe. If there were times when I was not entirely convinced, they were rare, and one can hardly blame an oboist for wanting to expand his instrument’s repertoire. From the outset, contrasts and mood-swings made the composer’s identity clear, though a rare instance of tentative string entry might have had me wonder. Mayer clearly relished the language and the twists and turns of this first movement, as did the ensemble, the physicality of whose playing had one feel in the best sense bows and rosin flying from their bows. This went ‘down’ all the way to the violone/double bass, Ulrich Wolff’s playing as nimble and expressive as that of anyone else. Another aria-like second movement followed, Mayer splendidly long-breathed, strings varying vibrato for expressive rather than dogmatic reasons. I found the harpsichord registration (a lute stop, I think) distracting, even irritating, but could see others in the audience responding more positively. Dramatic string interjections prior to the cadenza would surely have impressed Gluck. Likewise, in the finale, gestures told, whilst always forming part of a larger picture. Bright, incisive, string playing was matched by Mayer’s perky despatch of his part. It was a fine dialogue, enjoyable and nourishing in equal measure. 

The Third Brandenburg Concerto was given by three violins, three violas, two cellos, one double bass, and harpsichord continuo. Polished and lively, the first movement was a model of chamber-scale performance, wondrous transparency ensuring one could feel the import of every contrapuntal line and its direction. Whatever the virtues of his sons’ music – and they are great – Sebastian Bach cannot help but put them in the shade, his music once again proving so satisfying, engrossing, and yes, inspiring. All contributed equally, listening as keenly as they communicated. A rich harpsichord lead-in from Raphael Alpermann to ‘those’ two chords navigated passage to the finale. This I found a little too hard-driven, however impressive the playing, but it met with an enthusiastic reception. As a surprise ‘encore’, we were given the Sinfonia to ‘Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis’, BWV 21. One of Bach’s most extraordinary most memorable, and indeed most extraordinarily memorable cantata movements, it showed Mayer and Goltz in truly harmonious dialogue, violone pizzicato, bowed cellos, and the rest adding not only harmony and texture, but a glimpse of an entire theology. It flowed like tears, fermatas intelligible and meaningful to all, the drama leaping out as if from the aural equivalent of a stained-glass window. 

Johann Christoph Bach’s grave Lamento, arranged by Matthias Spindler, for English horn rather than contralto solo, against strings and continuo, was very much what it ‘said on the tin’, even before Mayer’s entry. Again, the keenness of unfolding dialogue between Mayer and Goltz (later, others too) was touching. Venetian antecedents were apparent, yet so was a more ‘German’ sense of melodic development. I could not help but think the loss of words here withheld from us a key to understanding; without that, the piece felt a little long, though it remained a rare and welcome opportunity to hear it. 

Emanuel Bach’s E-flat String Symphony came next, continuing and developing earlier tendencies of characterful performances which trusted the score without need for weird, ‘early musicke’ fetishisation, whether of instrument, articulation, ‘rhetoric’, or anything else. Alert, clear, directed, the first movement’s nerviness, present without exaggeration, was carried through into the ‘Andante’ minuet: a splendid surprise, all the more so for eschewing current fashions to take such music far too fast. Here, there was plenty of space for neurotic detail, and it was all the better to swing too. The players may have been relatively few in number, but they knew how to fill a hall with music (as much a matter of conception as of tone or mere volume). Catchy and disorienting, the finale proved just the thing both in its concentration and in the fascination of its plot-twists. 

And so, once more to Sebastian Bach, for the final piece, the (reasonably) well-known ‘return’ of the A major Harpsichord Concerto BWV 1055 to a putative oboe d’amore original. Whether an ‘authentic’ version or not – who cares? – the sheer ‘rightness’ of the music ‘itself’ brooked no dissent. Once again, the satisfaction of its construction, vertical and horizontal in perfect, productive balance in a way never surpassed and rarely matched, left one in no doubt as to the identity of the greatest Bach. That was partly, of course, a matter of the performance too: enlightened, surely, from whatever ideological standpoint (or none). Solo phrasing was so excellent one did not notice it. Tempi were just right, as was the sensitivity of dynamic shading, perhaps especially revealing in the ‘Larghetto’. An ebullient, even declamatory finale, as catchy as any Brandenburg Concerto, was taken quickly, without ever feeling rushed. As an encore, we heard Mayer and the ensemble in ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’ from Handel’s Rinaldo: a nice touch, not only permitting Kristin von der Goltz a wonderful cello solo leading us back from the ‘B’ section, but also lightly reminding us that Bach’s path to greatness is not the only one, tempting though it may be to think so when under his spell. Handel may look ‘less’ than Bach, but he can hold his own, and did here.