Bach Musica at St Matthew-in-the-City

By WILLIAM DART


After the grand event of April's St Matthew Passion, Bach Musica's latest concert seemed more intimate, an affectionate offering to the group's considerable audience base. Its home venue of St Matthew-in-the-City was packed, and spare programmes had to be reclaimed from patrons to supply the unexpected rush at the door.

Mozart's rarely performed K 459 Piano Concerto was what drew me along, a bubbling, frothy piece of elegance, written, amazingly enough, just a few months before the tragic D minor work of K 466.

The Concerto received a workmanlike performance.

Rita Paczian's beat lacked pliancy, and soloist Kate Sheffield bypassed the poetry, especially in the central movement. At times orchestral tone and church acoustic provided a buzz that was decidedly un-Mozartean.

Three short choral pieces followed. The first was a Mozart curiosity, his Sancta Maria, a short motet for choir and orchestra that suffered from acoustics and tentative male voices. Two unaccompanied items, Byrd's Ave verum corpus and Victoria's O Magnum Mysterium were more convincing, although the second was somewhat short on fervour.

The seed for Bach Musica was planted some decades ago in the Bach Cantata Society, a group that came together to perform the composer's many works in this form. Carrying on the tradition, Paczian had chosen, for this concert, Cantata 43 (God Goeth Up With Exaltation).

Exaltation was in short supply, alas, although there was much to admire in Paczian's scrupulous attention to rhythmic detail; her marshalling of choir and orchestra resoundingly confident in the final Chorale. The instrumental side was generally neat, with exceptional contributions from Alison Dunlop and Louise Trenemann on oboes.

However, it is unbelievable that anyone would attempt such a work without four competent soloists. Of the quartet, only Sarah McOnie understood the style and delivered the goods.

Her great aria, I See Within My Soul, was sensational, if that is the right description for something rendered with such composure. Her consummate handling of that deviously chromatic "sehnlich" (with yearning), remained with me well after the concert had ended.