Bach Festival boasts talented ensembles and variety
Freiburg Barockorchster dazzles with four splendid violin concertos
The eighth season of the Montreal Bach Festival opened with a concert by one of Europe’s best- known baroque ensembles, the Freiburg Barockorchster, who performed four of Bach’s splendid violin concertos, introducing both concert halves with musical snacks by Vivaldi.
Even though it was Vivaldi who made the violin concerto famous, it’s hard to hear him next to Bach without wondering if you’re missing something. There’s excitement and even exuberance, but the structure is far simpler — admirably efficient, though. Vivaldi’s Sinfonia for the opera “L’Olimpiade” RV 725 is a good example. It commands attention with a furious entry, bows out to a stroking rhythm in the Andante and ends long before you’re tired of it. If only more contemporary composers were so pragmatic, or more baroque ensembles so naturally energetic.
Next the Frieburgers launched into Bach’s Concerto in A minor, BMV 1041, with zestful, glowing tones. Bach’s lyricism is less virtuosic than Vivaldi’s, but suddenly there is counterpoint and an expanded palette of textures instead of just soloist and ensem- ble— though the performance gave splendid emphasis to their two soloists, too: Petra Müllejans and Gottfried von der Goltz, as well as Peter Barczi filling in for an indisposed Beatrix Hülsemann in the triple concerto, BWV 1064R.
Müllejans plays as if she’s boxing: She ducks and feints, happily sparring with some invisible partner, while von der Goltz stands tall as a Baltic pine and occasionally looks at things. Concertos BWV 1042 and BWV 1043 were as fresh and healthy as I’ve heard them, and the harpsichord in the Largo of the latter was exquisite — its arpeggios like claws on the floor sending your ears running back to the violin’s embrace.
Von der Goltz plays with an astonishingly clean tone, remarkable on a baroque instrument — they’re impishly ready to slip, whine and squeak — but Müllejans balances out the asceticism with messier but more spirited playing. These were pleasant variations. The ensemble has performed together for decades and its members have fused like a mythical Rat King, but in a good way. Sunday’s concert was recorded for RadioCanada’s ICI Musique and was broadcast at 8 p. m. on Monday, while we were at another festival concert: Pentaedre wind quintet at Redpath Hall, with pianist Mathieu Gaudet.
Only two of the four compositions were written for wind quintet, while the others were arrangements: two Bach chorales and Brahms’s 3rd Piano Quartet, transcribed by LouisPhilippe Marsolais, the quintet’s horn player. The chorales were lovely and Pentaedre’s chameleon tone gave the vocal lines ample character, and the last two movements of the Brahms were outstanding. The Andante beautifully featured the horn — a happy accident.
Unfortunately, the first two Brahms movements emerged laboured and incoherent. Winds just can’t stand up to such muscular piano writing — or playing, though I doubt Gaudet could have held back enough for the bassoon sound to emerge. Still it is good that things like this are tried at all.
Pentaedre’s performance of Mozart Quintet K 452 was too relaxed for me, particularly the day after the Frieburgers, and its Allegretto was strangely goofy.
This Mozart followed the première of Éric Champagne’s Four fantasies on B. A. C. H., which sandwiched a spacedout Aria and a dissonant but friendly Chaconne between fast movements that bounced Shostakovich- ly but didn’t leave much of an impression. It felt like a study, but again, the attempt is meaningful, and a healthy scene needs many more of these small commissions.
The Montreal Bach Festival continues until Dec. 7. Recommended:
Sergei Babayan on Saturday, Nov. 29, and I Musici di Roma on Sunday, Nov. 30.
Tickets and info: www. festivalbachmontreal.com