BRECON BAROQUE FESTIVAL 2014 — HOUSE OF BACH
"Whether you're one of our many friends who return every year from across the UK, Europe and even the other side of the world, or if you're considering coming to Brecon for the first time, we can assure you of a warm welcome and four days of outstanding music from the world's leading performers in their field." Rachel Podger, Artistic Director
I first heard Rachel Podger play 20 years ago. Her approach to playing immediately made sense to me. But as far as I could tell at the time it was only me that thought she was great. Now twenty years and several award-winning recordings later at her own festival the program reads "Rachel is one of the world's leading violinists".
This year is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, arguably the musically ablest of Johann Sebastian's sons. The ninth annual Brecon Baroque festival celebrated the music of CPE, his family, and his contemporaries.
This four day festival has always been varied, including both dance on stage and regular Tea Dances for festival participants. This year there were also two historic walks around the town and its buildings.
Friday 24 October — SING UNTO THE LORD
As usual the festival starts in Brecon Cathedral. And as is also reasonably regular, the Friday program was put together by tenor brother Julian. Sing Unto The Lord consisted of "cantatas and motets from the Bach family and their circle". It started with 16th century Gregorian chant-like a cappella singing, lead by an enchantingly beautiful soprano. The evening continued with an excellently constructed program consisting of a perfectly cohesive sequence of works that varied from the simply beautiful to the profoundly uplifting and triumphant.
With great humour Julian announced the encore, entitled something along the lines of, Goodbye world, I have had enough.
Saturday — A MUSICAL OFFERING
An intellectual peak of Western music is JS Bach's A Musical Offering. The preconcert talk was actor Ian Milton playing JS talking about the writing of the music, with the Brecon Baroque Ensemble's harpsichordist Marcin Swiatkiewicz playing some of the main musical themes and ideas.
The concert consisted of most of A Musical Offering, which I found a relentless procession of stimulating and thought provoking melodies.
After the interval there was Brandenburgs 6 and 3 acting as a sandwich to Wilhelm Friedemann Bach's Adagio and Fugue.
Rachel mentioned that performing Brandenburg 6 "completes the whole set of Brandenburgs at these festivals, and we're starting again by playing 3 again."
Rachel went on to explain Concerto 6 doesn't have violins, but 2 violas. At rehearsals both her and Jane Rogers had brought music for the 2nd viola part; Rachel had brought it as Jane has played 6 thousands of times, and Jane had brought it as Rachel is unspoken first violinist. They quickly hunted around to get hold of a copy of the first viola part. And they found it, on the internet.
Brandenburg 3 was previously played on the Monday of the 2010 festival and is one of the greatest highlights of the previous 57 times I've heard Rachel play. This performance was no exception. Absolutely no exception. Brecon Baroque Ensemble have released 2 highly regarded albums of excellent Bach works, that have both won awards. However, this is much better. This is his most loved music. Some of the most beloved of any music. And its live, played and directed by "Bach's playmate" and friends, all using a similar approach, style and standard of playing. Music probably doesn't get much better or any better than this. After 5 minutes of constant loud applause the final movement was repeated, at an even slightly faster speed.
Sunday — IN THE NAME OF BACH
Repeating the format set at last year's Sunday evening's concert, this was a mini educational lecture containing lots of live music. In this case a duo, violin and viola player Bojan Cicic and guest star harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani.
Of course one member of the Bach family has had more of an impact on subsequent great composers, and thus all of Classical music, than any other. CPE Bach, not his father JS. Emmanuel was known as Old Bach and was greatly respected by Mozart, and Beethoven only recommended CPE's book and approach to the piano.
This evening contained music by CPE and his contemporaries.
This evening was a good demonstration of CPE's mastery of composition. And also a good introduction to some of his almost never played contemporaries.
Very occasionally I come across a musician that impacts me, who has a calibre that stands out, an approach to playing that I connect me, that makes sense, a style of delivery I just get: Rachel Podger, Sian Winstanley, Alison McGillivray, and now Mahan Esfahani.
In pictures Mahan tends to look stern, however live, he has a genuine warmth, even slight playfulness about him.
Most importantly Mahan has rock-solid sense of authority which comes across in everything he does: playing, chatting with the audience, and even helping with the unexpected medical emergency when a lady in the front row fainted.
During his playing of the solo harpsichord concerto, this lady started making strange loud noises. After a while Mahan stopped playing. Organisers and he went to her assistance, lay her down, and he was one that helped recruit other strong young men close by to carry her out to the foyer. After a few minutes of complete silence he returned, warmly announcing, "not to fear the worst, she is fine, has partly recovered and is now talking, and is being looked after by ambulance staff, she even recovered to the point where we talked about my playing, she's heard me play better. That's what I love about the English, even in such circumstances: humour."
He then asked: "Where was I?" which received loud rapturous applause. He then sat at the harpsichord and immediately continued to play where he had left off with full speed, and certainty, as if absolutely nothing had happened.
At the end of the concert they admitted they had never played these pieces in public before, and joked that as they'd now played the first piece before an audience, they would like to play it again as an encore.
Monday Rehearsals
This was one of the years when some of the rehearsals were open to ticket holders for that night's concert. I've not been to a rehearsal since I first visited this festival in 2010.
Again this was educational in several ways, including witnessing the leadership of Tim Cronin with the large youth orchestra, and Rachel with the festival orchestra, at one point her encouraging their concerns by saying, "What's most important is how you feel".
It was also an interesting opportunity to witness the role-model of dedication in their younger daughter Rebecca, who spent almost the whole time on stage repeatedly practicing Toccata and Fugue's interweaved repeating D and ascending and descending scales that starts in bar 32. When told to stop by her neighbour, as other sections were tuning, she continued without bowing her violin, by just repeating the neck finger work.
Monday — FATHER, SON AND GODFATHER
The Godfather being Telemann, as he and JS had been friends for years.
The initially 30 piece festival orchestra opened with Telemann's Overture & Suite 'People'. In structure and theme this is a bit like Mussorgsky's Pictures From An Exhibition: an opening and then sonic representations of various personality types.
A slightly smaller orchestra then played the delightful bassoon concerto by Graupner, who applied for a job at the Thomaskirche, but his current employer wouldn't let him go, so JS got the job instead.
CPE's keyboard, strings and continuo concerto provided yet another example of the excellent calibre of CPE's compositional skills.
Post Interval was P Lawson's arrangement of Toccata and Fugue, played by the 40 piece youth orchestra, rendering this iconic work with great diverse colour. Other arrangements are definitely something worth checking out to appreciate even more how much is going on musically in this legendary work.
The final piece was Graun's Concerto for Violin and Viola da gamba, which consisted of a very long succession of alternating violin and viola solos from both Rachel and Alison McGillivray. Bliss.
As always, this Festival is an opportunity to be entertained by world class musicians. Entertained by hearing them play and entertained by hearing these fellow human beings talk.
For me, this year was a magical and profoundly uplifting four days.
Next year is the tenth Brecon Baroque Festival. The planning of some special things have already begun.
"Whether you're one of our many friends who return every year from across the UK, Europe and even the other side of the world, or if you're considering coming to Brecon for the first time, we can assure you of a warm welcome and four days of outstanding music from the world's leading performers in their field." Rachel Podger, Artistic Director
I first heard Rachel Podger play 20 years ago. Her approach to playing immediately made sense to me. But as far as I could tell at the time it was only me that thought she was great. Now twenty years and several award-winning recordings later at her own festival the program reads "Rachel is one of the world's leading violinists".
This year is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, arguably the musically ablest of Johann Sebastian's sons. The ninth annual Brecon Baroque festival celebrated the music of CPE, his family, and his contemporaries.
This four day festival has always been varied, including both dance on stage and regular Tea Dances for festival participants. This year there were also two historic walks around the town and its buildings.
Friday 24 October — SING UNTO THE LORD
As usual the festival starts in Brecon Cathedral. And as is also reasonably regular, the Friday program was put together by tenor brother Julian. Sing Unto The Lord consisted of "cantatas and motets from the Bach family and their circle". It started with 16th century Gregorian chant-like a cappella singing, lead by an enchantingly beautiful soprano. The evening continued with an excellently constructed program consisting of a perfectly cohesive sequence of works that varied from the simply beautiful to the profoundly uplifting and triumphant.
With great humour Julian announced the encore, entitled something along the lines of, Goodbye world, I have had enough.
Saturday — A MUSICAL OFFERING
An intellectual peak of Western music is JS Bach's A Musical Offering. The preconcert talk was actor Ian Milton playing JS talking about the writing of the music, with the Brecon Baroque Ensemble's harpsichordist Marcin Swiatkiewicz playing some of the main musical themes and ideas.
The concert consisted of most of A Musical Offering, which I found a relentless procession of stimulating and thought provoking melodies.
After the interval there was Brandenburgs 6 and 3 acting as a sandwich to Wilhelm Friedemann Bach's Adagio and Fugue.
Rachel mentioned that performing Brandenburg 6 "completes the whole set of Brandenburgs at these festivals, and we're starting again by playing 3 again."
Rachel went on to explain Concerto 6 doesn't have violins, but 2 violas. At rehearsals both her and Jane Rogers had brought music for the 2nd viola part; Rachel had brought it as Jane has played 6 thousands of times, and Jane had brought it as Rachel is unspoken first violinist. They quickly hunted around to get hold of a copy of the first viola part. And they found it, on the internet.
Brandenburg 3 was previously played on the Monday of the 2010 festival and is one of the greatest highlights of the previous 57 times I've heard Rachel play. This performance was no exception. Absolutely no exception. Brecon Baroque Ensemble have released 2 highly regarded albums of excellent Bach works, that have both won awards. However, this is much better. This is his most loved music. Some of the most beloved of any music. And its live, played and directed by "Bach's playmate" and friends, all using a similar approach, style and standard of playing. Music probably doesn't get much better or any better than this. After 5 minutes of constant loud applause the final movement was repeated, at an even slightly faster speed.
Sunday — IN THE NAME OF BACH
Repeating the format set at last year's Sunday evening's concert, this was a mini educational lecture containing lots of live music. In this case a duo, violin and viola player Bojan Cicic and guest star harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani.
Of course one member of the Bach family has had more of an impact on subsequent great composers, and thus all of Classical music, than any other. CPE Bach, not his father JS. Emmanuel was known as Old Bach and was greatly respected by Mozart, and Beethoven only recommended CPE's book and approach to the piano.
This evening contained music by CPE and his contemporaries.
This evening was a good demonstration of CPE's mastery of composition. And also a good introduction to some of his almost never played contemporaries.
Very occasionally I come across a musician that impacts me, who has a calibre that stands out, an approach to playing that I connect me, that makes sense, a style of delivery I just get: Rachel Podger, Sian Winstanley, Alison McGillivray, and now Mahan Esfahani.
In pictures Mahan tends to look stern, however live, he has a genuine warmth, even slight playfulness about him.
Most importantly Mahan has rock-solid sense of authority which comes across in everything he does: playing, chatting with the audience, and even helping with the unexpected medical emergency when a lady in the front row fainted.
During his playing of the solo harpsichord concerto, this lady started making strange loud noises. After a while Mahan stopped playing. Organisers and he went to her assistance, lay her down, and he was one that helped recruit other strong young men close by to carry her out to the foyer. After a few minutes of complete silence he returned, warmly announcing, "not to fear the worst, she is fine, has partly recovered and is now talking, and is being looked after by ambulance staff, she even recovered to the point where we talked about my playing, she's heard me play better. That's what I love about the English, even in such circumstances: humour."
He then asked: "Where was I?" which received loud rapturous applause. He then sat at the harpsichord and immediately continued to play where he had left off with full speed, and certainty, as if absolutely nothing had happened.
At the end of the concert they admitted they had never played these pieces in public before, and joked that as they'd now played the first piece before an audience, they would like to play it again as an encore.
Monday Rehearsals
This was one of the years when some of the rehearsals were open to ticket holders for that night's concert. I've not been to a rehearsal since I first visited this festival in 2010.
Again this was educational in several ways, including witnessing the leadership of Tim Cronin with the large youth orchestra, and Rachel with the festival orchestra, at one point her encouraging their concerns by saying, "What's most important is how you feel".
It was also an interesting opportunity to witness the role-model of dedication in their younger daughter Rebecca, who spent almost the whole time on stage repeatedly practicing Toccata and Fugue's interweaved repeating D and ascending and descending scales that starts in bar 32. When told to stop by her neighbour, as other sections were tuning, she continued without bowing her violin, by just repeating the neck finger work.
Monday — FATHER, SON AND GODFATHER
The Godfather being Telemann, as he and JS had been friends for years.
The initially 30 piece festival orchestra opened with Telemann's Overture & Suite 'People'. In structure and theme this is a bit like Mussorgsky's Pictures From An Exhibition: an opening and then sonic representations of various personality types.
A slightly smaller orchestra then played the delightful bassoon concerto by Graupner, who applied for a job at the Thomaskirche, but his current employer wouldn't let him go, so JS got the job instead.
CPE's keyboard, strings and continuo concerto provided yet another example of the excellent calibre of CPE's compositional skills.
Post Interval was P Lawson's arrangement of Toccata and Fugue, played by the 40 piece youth orchestra, rendering this iconic work with great diverse colour. Other arrangements are definitely something worth checking out to appreciate even more how much is going on musically in this legendary work.
The final piece was Graun's Concerto for Violin and Viola da gamba, which consisted of a very long succession of alternating violin and viola solos from both Rachel and Alison McGillivray. Bliss.
As always, this Festival is an opportunity to be entertained by world class musicians. Entertained by hearing them play and entertained by hearing these fellow human beings talk.
For me, this year was a magical and profoundly uplifting four days.
Next year is the tenth Brecon Baroque Festival. The planning of some special things have already begun.