Bach and friends in Bath
The annual festival continues to draw packed "houses" and world-class artists
Tenebrae in concert Picture by Chris O’Donovon
Since Amelia Freedman’s appointment as artistic director in 1995, Bath’s Mozartfest has been a fixture on the itineraries of some of the world’s finest musicians. What attracts them is the chance to play in auditoria dating from Mozart’s time, even if the great man himself - unlike his near-contemporary Haydn - never set foot in them. Building on that success, Freedman decided 13 years ago to found a sister festival in Bath - the Bachfest, which each year follows a more concentrated format of five concerts spread over a single weekend.
While the great Leipzig Cantor is the festival’s leading light, Freedman’s programmes are designed to place him in context: they show that, from his permanent post in one of Germany’s Lutheran strongholds in the first half of the 18th century, Johann Sebastian drew inspiration from the vast amount of music by contemporaries and forbears circulating around Europe during his lifetime.
During the past decade I have made regular visits to Bath in November for the week-long Mozartfest, but until this year I had never attended the Bachfest. With the Assembly Rooms closed for renovation and possible repurposing, both festivals have had to look for alternative venues. One of these is St Mary’s Bathwick, an early 19th century church seating about 250, which seems perfect for chamber music or small choral/orchestral forces. Two of the three events I attended found an ideal space in this intimate space.
In the first concert, Nigel Short’s masterful choir Tenebrae preceded three of Bach’s Leipzig motets, BWV 225, 227 and 229, with Gesualdo’s darkly intense Latin Responsories of the Office of Tenebrae - a collection of music for Holy Week, which has become a signature work for this ensemble of ten specialists.
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