United Kingdom Bach: Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Queen Elizabeth Corridor, London, 13.11.2024. (CK)
Bach – Brandenburg Concerto No.1; Brandenburg Concerto No.3; Brandenburg Concerto No.5; Brandenburg Concerto No.4; Brandenburg Concerto No.6; Brandenburg Concerto No.2
For me, and likely for hundreds of others, Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos have been the gateway to the Baroque: I vividly keep in mind the Saga LPs that I just about wore out throughout my teenagers within the Sixties (together with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones). But I’ve heard them in live performance solely hardly ever, and singly: by no means, earlier than this musical feast laid on by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, had I heard the entire set in a single night.
The Queen Elizabeth Corridor was packed: and this was solely a staging publish in a tour that’s bringing Bach to venues of all sizes and shapes from Manchester to Malvern, from Oxford to Darlington, from Stamford to Saffron Walden – the programme flexibly tailored to the dimensions and nature of every venue. So it’s a secure guess that dozens – no, a whole bunch – of individuals can be delighted to come across the Brandenburgs and drawn in to discover the riches of the Baroque past them.
And what a delight they have been. With the OAE enjoying one to a component (with no conductor) the sound was small however clear, every instrument crystal clear. There have been acres of naked house across the smaller groupings on the Queen Elizabeth Corridor stage: it could be that different venues will make a greater acoustic match for the music – it will be very attention-grabbing to listen to the gamers’ view on this on the finish of the tour. One of many chief pleasures of the night was the number of devices and sonorities on show: Bach is as endlessly ingenious in his use of various mixtures (no two concerti are alike) as he’s within the music he writes for them.
The concerti weren’t performed in numerical order (odd-numbered earlier than the interval, even-numbered after), however No.1 received us off to a high quality begin: as a lot enjoyable visually as musically, with the corni da caccia (Ursula Paludan Monberg, Martin Lawrence) flanking the centrally-placed harpsichord and held in entrance of the physique with the bell pointing aloft, above the participant’s head. There was drama too: throughout the pre-concert dialogue we had been alerted to the truth that the horns act as disrupters, musical anarchists, solely progressively introduced into consonance with the opposite gamers.
But the corni da caccia (searching horns) will not be the true stars right here: that accolade goes to the silvery sound of the uncommon piccolo violin (Huw Daniel), twining superbly with the oboe within the Adagio and rising within the ensuing Allegro as a soloist in its personal proper. That is the one Brandenburg to sport a fourth motion, a Minuet – as if Bach have been treating it as a set of dances, as he was to do in his suites. The primary Trio was particularly lovely, a pair of oboes duetting suavely and deliciously over a discreetly tramping bassoon; the second Trio (Bach inserts a Polacca between them) produced splendidly agile and exuberant enjoying from the horns – an excellent playout for them, since that is their sole look within the set.
A beautiful distinction, then, to listen to strings alone – three every of violins, violas and cellos – within the Third Concerto: one participant to a component making a splendidly detailed tapestry of sound. Within the concluding Allegro they gave the impression of a hive of bees: and the 2 chords of the Adagio have been elaborated in attractively improvisatory model by the chief – the well-named Margaret Faultless – accompanied by Stephen Devine on harpsichord.
Devine got here into his personal within the loopy cadenza that radically extends the opening motion of the Fifth Concerto: however despite the fact that the harpsichord was moved to the entrance of the stage, lid up and angled as a live performance grand can be, it was a feat of focus for the listener in addition to the participant. The Affettuoso was performed by flute, violin and harpsichord with flexibility and feeling; the concluding Gigue was as jaunty as you want. It was transferring to note later that the OAE’s transverse flute participant additionally performed in Trevor Pinnock’s earlier recording with The English Live performance: what a beautiful span of Bach efficiency!
The Fourth Concerto (after the interval) was an absolute pleasure. Violin fireworks (Huw Daniel), burbling recorders with an infectious lilt; within the Andante, a genteel dialog between recorders and strings; and a Presto fugal finale with an irresistibly madcap air. My Baroque-loving good friend Tim is of the opinion that the Brandenburgs ought to dance: this one actually did. After which how great to see a pair of violas da gamba take the stage, together with two violas and continuo for the Sixth Concerto: the violas da gamba behaving with impeccable manners whereas the violas chased one another in shut canonic imitation. The Adagio, earlier than the busy concluding Gigue, was as gravely lovely because the well-known sluggish motion of the Concerto for 2 violins.
Inserting the Second Concerto final instructed (to me, with little or no expertise of Baroque follow) that the live performance would culminate in trumpet thrills: but David Blackadder’s enjoying was fastidiously in scale with the opposite devices, part of the feel relatively than a star flip. I imply no disrespect to him in saying that the beautiful interaction between recorder, violin and oboe within the central Andante gave me most pleasure.
So many beauties of sound, so many sorts of timbre and texture: for 2 hours the corridor was filled with noises, sounds and candy airs, that attraction the ear and harm not. I nearly felt like volunteering as a roadie in order that I might be part of the tour and listen to this music repeatedly.
Chris Kettle
