News Concert Reviews Music and Beyond: Warm welcome for Bach’s glorious Six Motets
| Music and Beyond: Warm welcome for Bach’s glorious Six Motets |
| Written by RICHARD TODD, OTTAWA CITIZEN | Sunday, May 13, 2012 | |
BACH: SIX MOTETS (MUSIC AND BEYOND)Who: Ottawa Bach Choir with baroque ensemble, Lisette Canton, conductor
It was just like the good old days, say 15 years ago, when almost every festival concert included a complimentary sauna. It was a different festival, Music and Beyond, in which the Ottawa Bach Choir sang at Knox Presbyterian Saturday evening, but its founder was the same, Julian Armour. And it was hot. Perhaps there is a connection there, though Armour denies it. There was a lineup outside, but nothing like the around-the-block crowds of yesteryear. It would doubtless have been longer if the weather had been milder, if the air-conditioned Dominion-Chalmers had been available (we’re becoming an audience of wusses, I’m afraid), or if there hadn’t been two other competing concerts. But those of us who braved the heart and chose to hear some of the greatest choral music ever written, we happy few, heard the Six Motets of Johann Sebastian Bach sung as well as we’re ever likely to hear. The Motets are a kind of signature set for the Bach Choir and conductor Lisette Canton. They sang them in their first season 10 years ago, and have made a CD of them. Hearing the six performed on Saturday was like meeting with an old friend whose qualities have only become more sterling with the passing years. The six works were not presented in numerical order. The first was the short and exquisitely beautiful Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf. Okay, I’d better stop writing things like “exquisitely beautiful”. It applies to all six of the Motets, especially as they were sung in this concert. Next came Füchte dich nicht, followed by a spectacular account of the best-known of the motets, Jesu meine Freude. As in the previous ones, there was a marvellous layering of the musical lines, each with its independent logic contributing to the cogent whole. By the time intermission came along, the church was beginning to cool and after a few minutes out in the freshening evening air, it was not hard to come back for more music. The second half began with virtually the only blemished singing of the evening. The melisma of the opening few measures of Singet dem Herrn was wobbly, and it took a minute or so for the joyful impact of the music to become well established. The remaining motets, Komm, Jesu, komm and Lobet den Herrn, came off beautifully, and what might have been a long, hot evening ended up feeling just right.
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