The concert season is coming to a close, and the American Bach Soloists wrapped up their 26th subscription series with a varied and attractively presented program that included music from J.S. Bach, and two Italian masters: Antonio Vivaldi and the less well-known Neapolitan composer Leonardo Leo (1694 – 1744), or Lionardo Oronzo Salvatore de Leo, to be precise.
Music Director Jeffrey Thomas and the ABS orchestra set off in delightful spirit with Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D Major, BWV 1069. This was the early version, without the usually rather obtrusive trumpet and timpani parts, which the composer added at a later date.
In its original version, the entire suite assumed a gentler, more playful character. The orchestra shone with clearly parted voices in the lively, fugal section of the opening movement, a heavenly lightness in the interaction between the sprightly oboes (Debra Nagy, Stephen Bard, and Brandon Labadie) and the equally virtuosic bassoon (Nate Helgeson). The Gavotte was almost frivolous, creating a sharp contrast with the melancholic Minuet, which Jeffrey Thomas gently urged forward in long, flowing arcs.
Countertenor Ian Howell was the returning soloist, in Vivaldi’s Nisi Dominus (Except the Lord), a setting of Psalm 127 for solo voice in nine varying movements. He skillfully and nimbly navigated the coloratura passages in the faster sections and forged an almost otherworldly atmosphere in the andante-marked “Cum Dederit,” with muted strings providing a haunting pulse to carry the plaintive melody. Howell’s translucent tone and measured expression left this listener breathless.
His performance of the Bach cantata, Gott soll allein, mein Herze haben, BWV 169 (God alone shall have my heart), right after intermission was no less splendid. Singing in impeccable German, he impressed especially in the aria “Stirb in mir” (Die in me), but his overall presentation was marred by an organ obligato part that was decidedly not on point.
Making her debut with ABS, as well as giving the ensemble’s premiere of Leo’s Concerto for Violoncello in A Major L50, was cellist Gretchen Claassen. She was invited to perform with ABS as recipient of the 2015 Jeffrey Thomas Award. Leo’s concerto is not a wonder of dramatic expression, but last Sunday’s performance suggests that Claassen’s considerable technical abilities are ahead of her lyrical ones; the notes were in place, but she will have to explore this concerto for a while longer before she can call it her own.
The lovely concert finale was Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor, BWV 1043, with concertmaster Elizabeth Blumenstock – who had already showed her musical prowess on the viola d’amore in the Vivaldi – as one of the soloists.
The other violin part was superbly covered by recent ABS Academy graduate Cynthia Black, also making her ABS debut with these performances. The two violinists gracefully mixed and matched the different timbres of their instruments in a lively exchange of musical phrases and fragments in the outer movements of the Double Concerto, while their contemplative conversation lent gravitas to the central Largo.