The members of ABS with Artistic Director Jeffrey Thomas standing beside the harpsichord (from an ABS Web page)
As was the case last year, I have the United States Postal Service to thank for alerting me to plans for this year’s annual San Francisco Bach Festival held by American Bach Soloists (ABS). (I do not think I have seen electronic mail from ABS at any time during this calendar year.) This year there will be only four concerts, each at a different venue but all beginning at 7:30 p.m., between Thursday, July 27, and Sunday, July 30. As of this writing, specifics are as follows:
Thursday, July 27, Herbst Theatre: The series will begin with a program entitled Baroque Old & New. Three of the “usual suspects” will contribute to the program. Johann Sebastian Bach will be represented by his BWV 1050 (fifth) “Brandenburg” concerto in the key of D major with solo performances for flute, violin, and harpsichord and his BWV 170 cantata Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust (delightful rest, beloved pleasure of the soul), scored for solo alto voice and instrumental accompaniment. There will also be two concerto selections by Antonio Vivaldi, the RV 533 concerto for two flutes in C major and RV 580, the tenth (for four violins in B minor) of the twelve concertos published as the Opus 3 L’estro armonico (the harmonic inspiration). Georg Philipp Telemann will be represented by his TWV52:G3 concerto for two violas in G major, and the program will begin with a G major chaconne by John Blow. The program will also present the world premiere of José Daniel Vargas’ “Spring in San Francisco,” the First Place winner of the American Bach New Music for Period Instruments Competition.
Friday, July 28, San Francisco Conservatory of Music Barbro Osher Recital Hall: Oliver Moore will be the guest pianist for the program entitled Explorations: Bach Beyond Baroque. He will perform solo arrangements of Bach’s music composed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The earlier of these will be Camille Saint-Saëns’s arrangement of the opening sinfonia to the BWV 29 cantata, Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir (we thank you God, we thank you). This will be followed by what is probably the most popular transcription among pianists, Ferruccio Busoni’s “rethinking” of the lengthy chaconne that concludes the BWV 1004 solo violin partita in D minor. Moore will begin his program with one of Bach’s prelude-fugue couplings in the key of B-flat minor. (Presumably, this will be from one of the two Well-Tempered Clavier books; but the Web page for this program does not say which one!) The program will conclude with two piano compositions, both of which abound with nineteenth-century rhetoric. The first of these will be Johannes Brahms’ Opus 24, given the title “Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel,” based on a theme from the HWV 434 harpsichord suite in B-flat major. The program will then conclude with the piano arrangement of Franz Liszt’s organ composition entitled “Fantasy and Fugue on the Theme B-A-C-H.”
Saturday, July 29, Veterans Building Green Room: This will be the debut of SFBaroque, which will take a “cafe-style” approach to performance. This will involve more casual seating, enhanced by specialty cocktails. (Think of it as the 21st-century version of the jam sessions led by Bach and his colleagues at Gottfried Zimmermann’s coffee house in Leipzig.) The music for the occasion will be the well-known “Four Seasons” concertos by Antonio Vivaldi, featuring four ABS violinists: Jacob Ashworth, Tatiana Chulochnikova, Tomà Iliev, and YuEun Gemma Kim.
Sunday, July 30, St. Mark’s Lutheran Church: The season will conclude with the annual performance of the Bach BWV 232 Mass in B minor. Jeffrey Thomas will conduct the combined instrumental and vocal resources of ABS and Cantorei. There will be five vocal soloists: soprano Hélène Brunet, mezzo Sarah Coit, contralto Agnes Vojtko, tenor Aaron Sheehan, and bass-baritone Christian Pursell.
Tickets are now on sale for all of the above events. The hyperlinks attached to each date provide specifics for each of the four venues. Tickets will be sold for prices between $25 and $200. A single Web page has been created for purchasing all tickets to all of the concerts.
No comments:
Post a Comment