A Report to the Classical New Jersey Society members
on the North Jersey Bach Festival, 2005By Henry Wyatt, Ph. D.
There's lots to tell about this year's North Jersey Bach Festival. But before that, dear reader, a disclaimer: your critic was a participant, writing the program notes and speaking at the symposium, as has been the case in the past. I recused myself from covering those events. How, then, to proceed this time?
Please consider this a report to the stockholders from a member of the board. One thing learnt over the years is that in New Jersey we have no shortage of excellent musicians who have an especial affinity for Baroque music. We had several of them again this year. At the festival's first concert, a wonderfully intimate Friday evening event at St. Paul's Episcopal Church that duplicated the informality of the Leipzig coffeehouse where Bach and friends performed, harpsichordist Edward Brewer was ever the expert soloist and continuo player. His instrumental collaborators included: Virginia Brewer, oboe and oboe d'amore; violinists Judson Griffin and Susan Heerema; violist David Miller; cellist Christine Gummere; violonist Patricia Neely; and, jangling merrily in Bach's Concerto for Three Keyboards, harpsichordists Barbara Thomson and Victoria Griswold joined Brewer. All have mastered the intricacies of period performance and have worked with Mr. Brewer in concerts throughout New Jersey and elsewhere. Amongst these familiar and welcome performers was soprano Laura Heimes. For the "Wedding Cantata" she was in fine voice, an alluring persona whose on-stage rapport with oboist Virginia Brewer underlined Bach's use of the oboe as a topic of male desire - that of Phoebus Apollo and Eros in Bach's text. Instrumentalists, too, must cross gender lines to become actors, performing in trouser roles à la Octavian. Giving this added dimension to text and music was a knowing demonstration of Baroque poetics, and a high order of imaginative musicianship. Ms. Brewer was also the fine soloist in the oboe d'amore concerto, and she made this auditor wonder why so few composers other than Bach found employment for this lovely woodwind.
Mr. Brewer, the redoubtable keyboardist, returned on Saturday afternoon at the Westfield Congregational Church to join other players in a bouquet of solo instrumental works by Bach. All were first rate, including his selections from the Anna Magdalena Bach Notebook and the B-flat major Partita; Ruotao Mao's virtuosic performance of the E-major Partita for solo violin; Eliot Bailen's appropriately dark rendering of the C-minor Cello Suite; and some particularly lovely and moving selections from the Orgelbüchlein by organist Barbara Thomson. But the most memorable music-making of the afternoon - indeed, of the entire festival - was Ms. Thomson's stunning performance of the Prelude and Fugue in E-flat major ("St. Anne"), which must rank amongst Bach's most complex, demanding, and magnificent organ compositions.
Following the practice of previous festivals, the last concert, on Sunday night, was a gala featuring three of Bach's major works. In the Second Brandenburg Concerto, Donald Batchelder faced challenges in addition to his fractious piccolo trumpet, necessary for mastering this work's merciless trumpet writing. The acoustics of the Methodist Church are unkind to small ensembles, and it was all he could do not to overpower the other soloists, although he managed to blend for the most part.
The Westfield Symphony, reduced to chamber dimensions, played stylishly under conductor David Wroe, but much of this was lost in the muddy sonic environ; Edward Brewer's harpsichord was almost inaudible. But he shined to advantage in the slow movement, as did the other soloists, flutist Sato Moughalian, oboist Richard Foley and violinist Anton Miller.
Mr. Miller was joined by another violin soloist, Yukie Handa, in the D-minor concerto for two violins. They were contrasting personalities: Mr. Miller was the larger-toned, Ms. Handa the sweeter. Both were excellent.
The gala was capped by the Magnificat. Mr. Wroe's choristers and players filled the acoustical space with splendid sounds. Principals stood out, especially oboist Richard Foley and trumpeter Donald Batchelder, both with chops of iron unfazed by the Second Brandenburg's demands earlier in the evening. Equally impressive were the solo singers: baritone David Arnold; tenor Salvatore Diana; alto Abigail Nims; and sopranos Meredith Hoffmann-Thomson and Tory Browers. Each was distinctly memorable, and deserves mention in these dispatches.
The good news, then, is that all the music-making was of a consistently high order.