Kent Sweitzer
Under the direction of Trevor Stephenson (at keyboard, center), the ensemble draws on the rich literature of Baroque music.
For the fifth successive year, the Madison Bach Musicians have brightened our December with a Baroque Holiday Concert. This year’s event took place before a packed audience at First Congregational Church on Dec. 12.
Amid the seasonal floods of music no one would want to bother with any other time of the year, artistic director Trevor Stephenson’s group draws upon the vast literature of Baroque music to bring us compositions worth hearing all year long.
Two items were totally unrelated to Christmas. One was a quartet from Georg Philipp Telemann’s collection of household chamber pieces called Tafelmusik or Musique de table, delicately played. The other involved the first three movements from a brief setting of the Latin Mass segment, Gloria, composed by George Frideric Handel when touring Catholic Italy. It was cast in the form of a solo motet for soprano and strings, and these movements were sung brilliantly by Chelsea Morris.
For the opening, three other singers — alto Margaret Fox, tenor William Ottow, bass Luke MacMillan — joined Morris to present the Christmas adaptation of the Tudor song “Greensleeves,” which was followed by a set of variations on the tune for two violins and harpsichord. And, before the intermission, we were given a favorite seasonal masterpiece, the eighth of Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerti grossi, Op. 6, this one known as the “Christmas Concerto” for its conclusion with an Italian Nativity pastorale. It was given a lovely performance that particularly pointed up the ensemble leadership of violinist Kangwon Kim.
The heart of the program was a pair of cantatas by the group’s namesake, Johann Sebastian Bach. One, BWV 61, based on the chorale “Nun komm der Heiden Heiland,” was written for the first Sunday in Advent, its text expressing welcome to the Savior. The other was BWV 151, written for the third day of the Christmas week as a more intimate expression of receiving Jesus’ arrival and message.
The four singers were the stars in these two cantatas, bringing forth lovely singing. My one reservation is that their German diction was uneven or weak, especially in the case of the otherwise splendid Morris. These works carry messages Bach earnestly wanted to convey: Words are essential, and consonants are especially crucial in German.
The instrumental forces, variously deployed, consisted of eight string players, a flautist and Stevenson on harpsichord, a highly skilled and polished team.
