Thu 1/22 @ 7:30PM
Fri 1/23 @ 8PM
Sat 1/24 7:30PM
Sun 1/25 @ 4PM
Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the greatest composers in history, came from a musical milieu with a musician grandfather and father, numerous musician uncles and cousins and five offspring of his own who became musicians.
Given his large musical family tree (he himself had 20 children with two wives, although not all lived to adulthood), he undoubtedly also lived in a fairly chaotic milieu and one might wonder how he wrote all the timeless music he did.
It’s some of that environment that Apollo’s Fire, Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra, intends to capture in its next program Bach’s Birthday Part Part II: Family Frolic., which its billing as one of its a “Fireside” concerts because of its casual vibe.
The aim, says Apollo’s Fire music director Jeannette Sorrell is to “demonstrate that an extraordinary musician whose work has thrived for over 330 years, was also an ordinary man —one who struggled with a busy family life, marrying off his rebellious, but favorite daughter, and the ‘perils’ of coffee entering his neighborhood!”
“Bach had 10 children at home, so it was impossible for him to separate his ‘music’ and ‘family’ life,” she reminds us.
The evening will open with a 90-minute concert featuring music by J.S. Bach (Sorrell will play his Harpsichord Sonata in D minor) and two of his sons: Johann Christian and Wilhelm Friedemann. The Apollo’s Fire musicians will be joined by several up-and-coming musicians including soprano Madeline Healey who will portray Bach’s daughter in the comic “Coffee Cantata,” sparring with baritone Jeffrey Strauss as her father.
“We know from Bach family documents that ‘Lieschen’ was the nickname of one his daughters,” says Sorrell. “And she was the only of his daughters who got married. In the cantata, Lieschen keeps pestering her father to find her a husband. With an enormous church job and huge performing and composing responsibilities, Bach apparently didn’t have time to find husbands for most of his daughters. But he found one for Lieschen, because she wouldn’t give up. So I think the Coffee Cantata gives us a charming window into one of the important family dramas in the Bach household.”
After intermission, the venue turns into a coffeehouse, with coffee & cider for the audience and conversation with the artists. If you want still more, flutist Kathie Stewart will give a pre-concert talk an hour prior to each program.
It will be performed at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall on Thursday, First United Methodist Church in Akron on Friday, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights on Saturday, and Rocky River Presbyterian Church on Sunday.
Tickets are $21-$68.
apollosfire.org/concerts/bachs-birthday-party-part-i-family-frolic/