CHRISTMAS ORATORIO
Basically Bach’s recent performances of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio represent the first time the work has been heard in Chicago on period instruments, although Music of the Baroque has performed the work on modern instruments twice that I recall, once about ten years ago, and then last year, when it was used as the basis for that group’s New York debut at Lincoln Center.
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Moreover, Music of the Baroque and City Musick are performing fewer Baroque scores as they perform more scores from the Classical era. The phenomenal success of recordings of music of Haydn, Mozart, and even Beethoven on period instruments has meant a steady increase in attempts at live performances of this music by period-instrument ensembles. City Musick very cleverly picked up on this and began programming that music in abundance, Music of the Baroque also decided to get in on the act, and is now regularly scheduling concerts of Classical music–on modern instruments. Don’t be at all surprised to see Music of the Baroque venture into Beethoven, much as City Musick did last fall.
Whatever discussions of “art for art’s sake” we may get into in our own century, Bach never composed music without a fee–or at least without a very practical purpose (obtaining a better job, teaching his children)–in mind. Bach did not live to compose, he composed to live. One need not turn to Bach’s life to understand his music, for his music was his life, and he was always extremely practical about it–constantly recycling and rearranging his older pieces for new circumstances and performances.
Robinson has a wonderful sense of Bach’s structure on macro and micro levels, and is able to effectively communicate this to his ensemble, made up of both local and east-coast period instrumentalists. The string section, led by concertmistress Nancy Wilson, was by far the standout, having a lovely, warm tone, and, for the most part, responding as a unit with fewer intonation and pitch problems than in the past.
Soprano Carol Loverde was ill and was replaced by Johana Arnold, who did an outstanding job in the solo soprano sections, although she was overpowered by bass Andrew Schultze in the duet sections. Schultze himself seemed to have a cold, flu, or some upper respiratory infection that gave a slight cackle to his usually smooth bass sound and solid technique.
