Schuller Able To Bring Out Best In Bach Conductor And Soloists Make Concertos Dance And Sing
Northwest Bach Festival Friday, Jan. 12, at First Presbyterian Church
A standing-room-only audience at First Presbyterian Church Friday, heard performances of J.S. Bach’s vocal and instrumental music conducted by Gunther Schuller.
As usual with Schuller’s performances, it contained revelations that few other conductors bother to approach.
Schuller and his players brought a natural grace and springy dance quality to Bach’s “Brandenburg” Concerto No. 2 which opened the program and to the concluding “Brandenburg” No. 1.
Trumpeter David Hickman, flutist Michael Faust, violinist Kelly Farris and oboist Allan Vogel performed their difficult solos with the flair of four men in animated conversation, and three of the four turned the Andante ( where the trumpet is allowed a few minutes of rest) into tender operatic trio.
In the concluding “Brandenburg” Concerto No. 1, soloists Farris and Vogel were joined by hornists Richard Todd and Roger Logan, oboists Keith Thomas and Ben Fitch and bassoonist Barbara Novak.
This concerto is full of lovable quirks in rhythm, instrumentation and structure. Bach’s fanciful instrumentation - the remote-sounding violino piccolo part, the snarl of three oboes, the risky pairing of two horns playing high up in their range - was a pleasure to hear Friday.
Schuller made a seamless unity of the solo and orchestral parts in both concertos.
The vocal works Friday, an elaborate chorale from Cantata No. 23 and Cantata No. 64 in its entirety, were not as consistent.
The Bach Festival Chorus responded well to Schuller’s brisk tempos and his requirement for fastidious diction and phrasing. And with the three trombones and trumpet, Bach assigned to double the choral parts Schuller elicited a scarcely audible, but beautifully effective halo around the intertwining choral melodies.
The tempos Schuller chooses always seem so invariably right; it is rare that I grumble about any of his choices.
The choral sections were beautifully paced, but the soprano and alto arias in the Cantata No. 64 seemed effortful and sluggish.
The texts reflect the almost ecstatic joy of the Christian soul rejecting the world’s temptations and riches to the love of Chirst, and I missed that exhilaration.
The cantata’s soloists, soprano Darnelle Preston, mezzo-soprano JoAnne Bouma and bass-baritone John Frankhauser sang well enough, but swifter tempos and a lighter touch with the accompaniment would have given a better sense of Bach’s words in the arias.
Throughout Friday’s concert, harpsichordist and organist Ilton Wjuniski provided peerless realizations of the expressive possibilities in Bach’s keyboard accompaniments.
, DataTimes