American Bach's Grand Tour

American Bach began their 37th Season last weekend with what they were calling A Grand Tour. This was not in reference to the four towns where they were performing (Belvedere, Berkeley, San Francisco, and Davis), but instead were referring to the European cultural journey that an 18th century English gentleman was expected to undertake upon reaching young adulthood. Featuring three of the greatest Baroque composers, we started in London (Handel), then traveled to Liepzig (J.S. Bach), Venice (Vivaldi), and Rome (Handel again).

The concert started with an ode to England's Queen Anne, the 1713 Eternal Source of Light Divine, for five soloists, chorus and a small orchestra playing on original instruments. Especially noteworthy were the flawless performances of Kris Kwapis and William B. Harvey on Baroque trumpets, an almost impossibly difficult instrument to play on pitch. The music and performance from everyone was exquisite, with stellar contributions from sopranos Julie Bosworth and Morgan Balfour, contralto Ágnes Vojtkó, countertenor Kyle Tingzon...

...and particularly bass-baritone Jesse Blumberg (above right) whose deep voice was unusually supple.

This was followed by J.S. Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C Major, a dance-inflected series of seven movements, highlighted by extraordinary woodwind performances by oboists Stephen Bard and Curtis Foster and bassoonist Georgeanne Banker.

After intermission, there was a thrilling performance of Vivaldi's circa 1715 Gloria in D Major. The chorus was outstanding, and it was fun to watch the soloists step out from the group to the front of the stage for their arias, and then blend back into the chorus when they were not singing solo.

The conducting by Artistic Director Jeffrey Thomas rightly varied in style for each composer, and he prefaced the concert with the statement, "There is a lot of music today, so I'm not going to make any remarks at all." Also performing fantastically all Sunday afternoon at San Francisco's St. Marks Church were the violin section of Tatiana Chulochnikova, Gail Hernandez Rosa, Toma Iliev, YuEun Gemma Kim, and Maxine Nemerovski.

The finale was Handel's wild, gorgeous setting of Dixit Dominus from 1707. At times the music almost sounded like modern minimalist chugging, and its series of delights was a perfect capstone for a gorgeous concert.