ABS Begins Festival with “Usual Suspects”

Last night Herbst Theatre provided the venue for the first of the four concerts to be performed in this year’s annual San Francisco Bach Festival held by American Bach Soloists (ABS). The title of the program was Baroque Old & New; and, as might be expected, it featured three of the “usual suspects” of composers from the Baroque period: Johann Sebastian Bach himself, his colleague Georg Philipp Telemann, and Antonio Vivaldi, whom he admired so much that he transcribed some of that composer’s concertos. The program began with a four-voice chaconne in G major by John Blow; and, for “something completely different,” the second half of the program featured Spring in San Francisco, a four-movement suite composed by José Daniel Vargas a third-year bachelor’s student in Composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, studying under David Conte.

As is usually the case, this made for a full evening, which tended to be more than even the most avid mind could maintain. However, Bach was definitely given his due with selections on either side of the intermission. The first half of the program concluded with BWV 1050, the fifth of the so-called “Brandenburg” concertos. This is the only one of the six in which the harpsichord is a leading solo instrument. It includes a full-scale cadenza towards the end of the first movement, which was given a thoroughly engaging account by Cory Jamason. The other soloists were Sandra Miller on flute and Elizabeth Blumenstock on violin, and the entire performance was thoroughly engaging from beginning to end.

If the first half of the program concluded with the secular, the second half began with the sacred, the BWV 170 cantata Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust (delightful rest, beloved pleasure of the soul). The vocalist was mezzo Sarah Coit, and instrumental solos by flutist Bethanne Walker and Debra Nagy on oboe d’amore were featured. Jamason played the obligato organ part. This was the only Bach selection that Artistic Director Jeffrey Thomas conducted, while BWV 1050 was given “chamber music treatment.” Nevertheless, both performances provided refreshing reminders of why Bach provides the namesake for this annual festival.

The only other composer to be represented by two compositions was Vivaldi. During the first half of the program, Miller joined forces with fellow flutist Bethanne Walker in a performance of the RV 533 two-flute concerto in C major. More familiar, however, was the final work on the program, the tenth concerto in the key of B minor in the Opus 3 collection entitled L’estro armonico (the harmonic inspiration). This is the last of the four concertos in the collection composed for four solo violins, performed by YuEun Gemma Kim, Tomà Iliev, Tatiana Chulochnikova, and Jacob Ashworth. (This is one of the concertos that Bach transcribed, changing the instrumentation to four solo harpsichords.) This made for a lively conclusion to the “business as usual” program that Thomas had prepared.

Spring in San Francisco was, of course, the “outlier.” Each of the four movements served as a reflection on the title. There was much to engage the attentive listener; but, as is almost always the case, any brand-new composition deserves more than one listening experience. While I found Vargas’ skills engaging, I was more than a little concerned that he was being overwhelmed by that crew of leading composers from the Baroque period!