By Laura Kennelly
Baroque music, and that of J. S. Bach in particular, took over the Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music last week during the 81st Annual Bach Festival. A series of concerts, lectures, and outdoor performances showed the continuing vitality of Bach’s works and celebrated the joy of learning once again how new they still sound.
The major Bach work featured this year was the dramatic and oft-operatic “Christmas Oratorio.” (Appropriately, it snowed early that day, April 20). The oratorio’s operatic aspects, especially the dialogues between soul, Jesus, angels, shepherds, prophets, and others created a near soap-opera, drawn from the pages of a romantic fantasy as the hope embodied in Jesus’ birth turned musical.
The four soloists carried the story forward with grace. Soprano Sherezade Panthaki, wedded Vocal power with sonic beauty; Thomas Cooley, tenor, made each aria dramatic and distinctive; bass Christòpheren Nomura and Meg Bragle, mezzo-soprano also brought their roles to life. Dwight Oltman conducted the outstanding Baldwin Wallace Orchestra (a mix of students and guests) and Festival Choir (all students, prepared by Dirk Garner). The lively and delightful chorus, which plays an especially large role in the Christmas Oratorio, bobbed around around like tuneful little ships at sea.
As pre-concert seminar speaker Yale professor Markus Rathey commented, given this work’s dramatic qualities, Bach could well have written popular operas. So why didn’t he? “The only reason Bach didn’t compose an opera was because he didn’t have to.”
Musicians of that day, just like today’s, followed the money, had to make a living. Bach, father to a large family and a practical man, did what his church-linked job required. Once again, the Festival shows, that was a very good thing for the rest of us, even centuries later.
Held 4/19 – 4/21. https://bw.edu
Laura Kennelly is a freelance arts journalist, a member of the Music Critics Association of North America, and an associate editor of BACH, a scholarly journal devoted to J. S. Bach and his circle.Listening to and learning more about music has been a life-long passion. She knows there’s no better place to do that than the Cleveland area.
Berea, OH 44017