Good Friday

It's Good Friday and thanks to a request from the venue, there is no applause after these Holy Week concerts.  Absolutely apt, although the music was delicious.  This was a larger order than the Lamentations: SATB vocals with 6 instruments, although we only heard 5 given absence due to sickness.  The composer was Christoph Graupner, prolific and a contemporary of JS Bach.  Apparently, his cantatas (1,400+) are well preserved and his reputation has grown through recent decades.  We heard "Where is Jesus going?" (GWV1119/39) on Christ's departure and faith and trust in divine guidance, and "We know that tribulation brings patience" (GWV1121/44) on suffering as a pathway to spiritual endurance, character and hope.  I quote from the program, of course, given the German was not obvious to my ears.  But lovely four part singing, occasional solos from all parts, enticing counterpoint and harmony and effective interplay of vocals and instrumental parts.  The instruments were two violins, viola, bass and harpsichord.  The missing instrument was cello, which certainly would have added  considerable embellishments in the mid-range, but the solo bass took on a clear, effective presence which also responded with and to vocals.  Fascinating to the ears of this bassist.  Then the quiet and pleasure after the two cantatas and perhaps some dissonance with the Easter story.  Thus is history and modernity.

Singers Greta Claringbould (soprano), Maartje Sevenster (alto), Will Millard (tenor) and Andrew Fysh (bass) performed two Graupner cantatas at Wesley with accompaniment from John Ma and Lauren Davis (violins), Brad Tham (viola), Isabella Brown (bass) and Marie Searles (harpsichord).