So, my second musical outing after Japan and following SoundOut was Canberra Bach Ensemble. How can you not love Bach? He's so much a great love of our era and his cantatas are big choral works which inevitably thrill and his counterpoint is sublime. This was CBE's triumphant return concert after performing in Leipzig, Bach's most famous home, for this year's Leipzig Bach Festival. It must have been thrilling for those who attended. I know they picked up bass and keys there and maybe others. These are not instruments to easily travel with. But then this is the home of Bach and also apparently the oldest orchestra, from the Gewandhaus, and plenty of players who play Bach cantatas regularly, so no particular problem. This concert was back to Canberra brick rather than German stone but the thrill was still there. Four cantatas over two hours of performance. I can enjoy the interludes, the recitatives and arias, the singers with solo or small accompaniments, but nothing does it for me like the choruses, with blaring period trumpets and blurting oboes da caccia and driving gut bass playing with oddly grouped lines that double up unexpectedly and carry on releantlessly. Thrilling and exultant. Loved this one as all!
Canberra Bach Ensemble performed BWV119,148,192,137 and an encore of a wedding cantata BWV195 at St Christopher's, Manuka, under Andrew Koll (director). Singers were Greta Claringbould (soprano), Maartje Sevenster (alto), Timothy Reynolds (tenor) and Andrew Fysh (bass). Stephen Freeman (violin) led the orchestra and Kyle Ramsey-Daniel (bass) performed on Dave's gut 5-stringer.
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