Kent Sweitzer
Founder and director Trevor Stephenson (at keyboard) offers a talk before each concert.
In a season filled with Nutcrackers and Christmas Carol performances, the Madison Bach Musicians have established their own worthy tradition: the Holiday Baroque Concert.
The beginnings of a blizzard notwithstanding, a considerable and enthusiastic audience turned out for the sixth annual concert Dec. 10 at First Congregational Church.
A delightful program was delivered by four singers and six instrumentalists. The singers (Chelsea Morris Shephard, Joseph Schlesinger, Scott Brunscheen and Matthew Tintesbegan) began with music from two Renaissance masters, Joaquin Desprez and Orlandus Lassus: the first two sections of Desprez’s Mass on the “Pange lingua” chant, and two of Lassus’ Latin Motets.
The rest of the first half was devoted to Baroque instrumental music, played by violinists Kangwon Lee Kim and Brandi Berry, violist Marika Fischer-Hoyt, cellist Martha Giese Vallon, bassoonist Marc Vallon and harpsichordist Trevor Stephenson. They delivered a trio sonata by Johann Fox, a Bassoon Sonata by Georg Philipp Telemann and a Partita by Heinrich Biber for two re-tuned violins and continuo.
The second half of the program was more explicitly seasonal. The splendid soprano Chelsea Morris Shephard sang a charming Nativity cantata by Alessandro Scarlatti, accompanied by the instrumentalists. That was followed by a short but powerful aria by the group’s eponymous hero, J. S. Bach, from his St. John Passion — a preview of the group’s full performance of that work is scheduled for April — strongly sung by tenor Scott Brunscheen.
The concert wrapped up with a more extended representation of Bach: his Christmas Cantata BWV 122, Das neugeborne Kindelein, a richly clever six-movement elaboration of the Lutheran chorale of that title. The individual solo sections were handsomely rendered, while the use of only the evening’s four singers re-created what must have been Bach’s own practice, and gave the choral sections particular clarity.
Trevor Stephenson offered his usual pre-concert remarks about the program and its contents. As founder and director of the group, he has established a sturdy and flourishing tradition of presenting Baroque music with sensitivity, style and artistry. I am already looking forward to the seventh annual holiday concert.
