Daily Archives: February 2, 2025

Bach Akademie Delights and Mystifies With “A Musical Offering”

Review: A Musical Offering at St. Mark’s Lutheran

By Perry Tannenbaum

Whether it’s jazz, bluegrass, or the rock fantasias of Eric Clapton, John McLaughlin, and Carlos Santana, much of modern music is rooted in the appeal of riffing on a tune. That allure has been around for centuries, known as theme and variations when dressed up in the periwigs and cravats of the Baroque Era. Among the great classical composers who have shown off their wizardry in the form are Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Beethoven, and Bach.

Embellishing a melody and cracking open its chord structure are at the heart of theme-and-variations praxis, but there are also wicked, macho elements of challenge, competition, and virtuosity baked into the form. The jam session in jazz becomes a cutting contest when two titans collide. Who can imagine and execute the most intricate, complex, and satisfying variation?

So it was gratifying to learn that Johann Sebastian Bach’s A Musical Offering originated as a challenge. The challenge was issued in Berlin to the visiting Leipzig master – by none other than Frederick II, King of Prussia, his son Carl Philipp Emanuel’s employer. After Bach had duly impressed the king, his noblemen, and an assembly of the finest musicians in Europe by improvising new compositions on each of the new fortepianos at court, King Frederick laid down his gauntlet.

Compose a three-part fugue on the spot based on a melody he, the king, had written. Game on! Bach sat down once again at one of the keyboards he had just tested and tossed off a brand new 1747 masterwork on May 7, the first piece in Bach Akademie Charlotte’s inaugural concert of 2025 at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, played by renowned harpsichordist Ian Watson.

Thankfully, “Frederick the Great” was royally miffed to see Bach meet his challenge so effortlessly. He literally doubled down on his challenge to humiliate his distinguished guest, daring Bach to execute a six-part fugue on the same tune. Here Bach judiciously yielded, saying that he would need some time at home to fulfill such a daunting assignment on such a worthy theme. Within two months, at age 62, Bach delivered on the king’s request and completed the six-part invention plus over a dozen more canonic gems.

Modern recordings of A Musical Offering are all over 50 minutes in length and, depending on whether the original theme is prefaced, 16 or 17 tracks. Various instrumental configurations are available after the initial solo track. For this live Akademie concert, BACh artistic leader Guy Fishman assembled an all-star quintet that included himself on cello, Watson at the keyboard, Emi Fergusson on transverse flute, co-artistic leader Aisslinn Nosky on violin, and Renée Hemsing playing viola and violin.

Though I have four or five Goldberg Variations in my collection, I’ve never heard Bach’s most famous variations performed live, so this opportunity to hear the lesser-known Musicalisches Opfer was doubly special. Interspersed with the marquee piece of the evening were three other works, a CPE Bach Violin Sonata, a flute sonata by King Frederick II, and a Cello Sonata by Carl Heinrich Braun, another Bach contemporary.

Fishman’s spoken remarks, supplemented by his generous program notes, vividly described the king’s arrogance and his guest’s tactful responses. Nor did the principal cellist of Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society avoid detailing the various devices and complexities that Bach lavished on his thematically connected compositions. But with five musicians assembled before us, many in the audience must have been surprised that Watson alone would be playing Bach’s opening salvo.

The result was denser and tinnier than orchestral recordings of the Ricercar a 3, with less linearity than a recording on organ that I’ve heard. Three voices presented by two hands on a live stage! No matter how dense that sounded – remember that an organ can differentiate with multiple keyboards and registers plus a pedal board – it was amazing to see and hear.

Each new movement in the piece was usefully punctuated by musicians rising and sitting while music stands were being set up in new configurations. Nevertheless, confusion set in before we reached the second piece of the evening, the King of Prussia’s Flute Sonata No. 9. Three movements were listed under the Musical Offering and the ensemble was clearly playing more.

I lost track. Scattered in the program, in clusters of three, five, and five (if I’m deciphering the typography properly), were the remaining pieces of the Musical Offering. Titles for the remaining movements didn’t entirely correspond with titles of any recording available to me on Apple or Spotify. The four Sonata movements embedded in the piece could have been mistaken for another listing if it weren’t for the BWV catalog number, and a hefty number of the segments that could easily be recognized were played sooner or later than common practice.

Most recordings don’t label any of the movements “Quaerendo invenietis,” a title given twice in the Akademie program, and where they do appear, they are played consecutively. Not at St. Mark’s Lutheran. The climactic Ricercar a 6 that Frederick had ordered, for another example, usually claims Track 9 on Musical Offering recordings. At St. Mark’s Lutheran, it was sixteenth and last on the bill. Thus I can say with conviction that all five instrumentalists were involved in the glorious finale, but I’m more than a bit hazy on most of the rest.

While this disorientation made it impossible for us to even attempt to track the incredible gymnastics of Bach’s inventions – themes and variations played in reverse, simultaneously in varying tempos, descending instead of ascending, or even upside down – the confusion didn’t carry over to the other pieces on the program. Here we were freer to scrutinize and enjoy.

Fergusson, of course, benefitted most from the spotlight shifting toward the non-Musicalisches pieces. One of these by Frederick II, in addition to the four-movement sequence embedded in the Offering, was a flute sonata. It was possible, upon hearing Fergusson’s performance of the king’s Sonata No. 9, to reserve judgment for a little while since the first of Frederick’s three E-minor movements was at a slow Grave tempo. Prussia’s monarch was a flutist, after all, writing chiefly to spotlight his own prowess.

But the next two movements were fast and faster, Allegro assai and Presto, so there could be no doubting Frederick’s genuine proficiency as a composer or as a performer. The piece was also sufficiently virtuosic to tempt me toward rushing to judgment on Fergusson, partly because the acoustics at St. Mark’s were so extraordinarily friendly to her transverse flute.

This performance was the best I had seen live on baroque flute since 2004 when I had the privilege of seeing, hearing, and meeting Michala Petri at the Verbier Festival. When we arrived at the four-movement Trio Sonata for Flute, Violin, and Continuo shortly after intermission, my reflex reactions to Fergusson’s artistry were bolstered. In the lyrical odd-numbered movements, her fruity tone bloomed again. And in the two uptempo Allegros, where her virtuosity not only impressed but intertwined with Nosky’s delicious work, one could nearly marvel as much at the musicians as at the composer.

“Now for something completely different,” Fishman quipped before leaning into Graun Sonata for Violoncello and Continuo in C, accompanied by Watson. If you’ve heard Fishman tackle Bach’s Cello Suites here in Charlotte, the three-movement Graun was lighter and less daunting. Fishman seemed to have the most fun with the final Allegretto, making it dance in its 3/4 waltz tempo.

Even simpler, Fishman joined Watson as continuo partners in Carl Philipp Emanuel’s Violin Sonata in D, accompanying Nosky. Here again, the piece was not a stretch for anyone involved, but it brought us merrily enough to intermission, with another movement in 3/4, a leisurely Menuet sandwiched between two iterations of a faster one.

The piece closes a delightful collection of CPE Violin Sonatas released by Rachel Podger in 2023, demonstrating over and over that Bach’s most prestigious son merits more play. Three minor-key sonatas on the same disc are equally fine. The E-minor, in particular, yields more pleasure in less time.

Photos by Perry Tannenbaum

Caritas a Cappella Delivers a Mix of Ancient and Modern Gems

Review: Caritas a Cappella Ensemble @ St. Alban’s

By Perry Tannenbaum

January 19, 2025, Davidson, NC – With so many churches in the metro Charlotte area, it’s little wonder that the Queen City is fertile ground for choirs and choristers – and receptive audiences for choral music. Considering this profusion of talent and activity, as well as the total absence of Caritas A Cappella Ensemble press releases in my voluminous mailbox and the lack of catch-up info on the Caritas website, I was able to forgive myself for not having known about this organization, founded by Cathy Youngblood in 2017, until signing up for this review.

More ominous, as we entered the St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, was the elephant in the room: a spanking new grand piano in the middle of the sanctuary, standing in front of two rows of music stands where the singers would be placing their iPads and music scores. Was there somebody at Caritas HQ (if there’s more to it than the PO Box given at the website) who needed to learn the meaning of a cappella?

Thankfully, the piano was there for a delayed pre-show, so the mammoth obstacle turned out to be a blessing. For once, my wife Sue and I had arrived early enough for a Music at St. Alban’s concert to take in the prelude event, where star students from the Davidson area are given the opportunity to play for an audience and warm us up for the featured guests.

Those of us who had arrived on time for the pre-show were rewarded, while awaiting the arrival of Tianyang Chen, with a couple of delightful morsels of Brahms from his teacher, Cynthia Lawing. Once Chen had gone through his recital of pieces by Ginastera, Liszt, Brahms, and Debussy, the elephant could be moved to make way for the marquee players.

Surprises didn’t cease with the piano’s exit. Caritas artistic director Jeremy Mims entered the sanctuary in the usual way, but the Ensemble didn’t take their places behind the music stands. Instead, they encircled the audience – men in front, women at the rear of the hall – for the opening selection, “Musick’s Empire” from Triptych by Lloyd Pfautsch (1921-2003). Besides the ethereal surround sound blend, this presentation heightened the drama when Mims cued the female voices. Fittingly, the outré deployment of the Ensemble was devoted to a modern piece. It wasn’t until the singers took their places after this opening that the title of their concert, “A Capella Through the Ages,” could be fulfilled in a more orderly, chronological manner.

Fussing a bit with the printed program, replacing a couple of titles on the list with new selections and occasionally shuffling the order of performance, the concert kept to its original design, flashing back to the Baroque days of Vivaldi, Palestrina, and the Scarlattis with a nice mix of sacred and secular lyrics. Whether it’s Handel or Bach, we hear many of the mightiest works from that wondrous era, so it was nice to sample these less familiar gems.

What interested me most on the program was the predominance of more modern pieces, from the days of Bruckner, Holst and Vaughan Williams to the present day. Pieces like these, which sound surprisingly retro compared to the modern chamber and orchestral pieces we’re familiar with, have always been mainstays at Spoleto Festival USA concerts down in Charleston, SC, so I was eager to see how these performances would compare and how a North Carolina audience would react.

The composers’ names were no less intriguing and enticing. We don’t readily recognize contemporary composers Elaine Hagenberg (1979-), Kevin Memley (1971-), Eric Whitacre (1970-), and Pärt Uusberg (1986-) by their last names. As for Frank Tichelli (1958-), whose “Earth Song” was inserted after the program was printed, I was nowhere close to knowing how to spell his name when Mims announced it. “Sikelly” was my first stab. Well-matched to the slow-paced, richly-scored music, Earth’s lyric was rather simple at its core: “Oh war and power, you blind and blur. The torn heart cries out in pain. In pain. But music and singing have been my refuge, and music and singing shall be my light.”

Uniquely, the beauty of the hallelujahs later on was more like a solemn sunset than a jubilant festival. Sadly, Caritas’s enunciation was no clearer than that of multiple recordings – including one by the famed Seraphic Fire – I sampled on Spotify, which offered welcome first aid in deciphering the lovely lyrics. Consonants were often unclear, vain routinely indistinguishable from pain. And vowels! Try to hear “light” when that word pops up!

Never again will I blame myself for losing track of what a choir is singing in Latin (or any other foreign language) when I have the printed text before me. For that reason alone, Uusberg’s magical “Ōhtul” nudged “Earth Song” aside for me as the most impressive piece on the program. Since translations were appended to the program, full contentment with the performance was a simpler matter. The grand swell, as the poet’s song paddled away, was a lovely surprise after everything else – bird, little flower, and forest trees – had been silenced and lulled to sleep by the twilight. Erkki-Sven Tüür (1959-) and Arvo Pärt (1935-) will need to leave some space for this youngster on their pedestal as my favorite Estonian composers.

As for the practice of printing translations for vocal performances, a brief word. Follow the practice of most opera companies nowadays who project subtitles even when the operas are performed in English. Print the English texts with the translations for our fullest enjoyment.

“Nunc Dimitis” by Gustav Holst (1874-1934) impressed me nearly as much as the Uusberg, with solos from soprano Sarah Ochoa and tenor Nicholas Setzer. The soloists not only sang their brief solos purely, they set the stage for responses from the Ensemble at a dramatically augmented volume. Wisely, the Latin didn’t appear in the program, clearing the pathway to pleasure when we went straight to the translation.

Of course, the fullest experiences at this concert came from songs in our language that were either familiar to us or readily grasped in real time. The most enjoyable of these included Hagenberg’s joyous “Alleluia,” though it sported few more words aside from amen, and the finale that followed, “Ezekiel Saw de Wheel” as arranged by William L. Dawson (1899-1990). Most surprising of all was Vaughan Williams’ “O Mistress Mine,” from his Three Elizabethan Part-Songs, a rather frisky departure for a composer better known for the grandeur of A Sea Symphony, the anguish and majesty of Job,and the simple tragedy of Riders to the Sea.

Gerald Finzi’s “My spirit sang all day,” mercifully brief, didn’t really speak to me, and “Shenadoah,” as arranged by James Erb (1926-2014) disappointed. Crossing the “wide Missouri,” we have an inalienable right to more bass and sinew between the shores. Bypassing my personal distaste for the foundational baby-worship that pervades Christianity, the pairing of Whitacre’s “Lux Aurumque” and Memley’s “O Magnum Mysterium” were more pleasing to me in Latin, since ignoring the translations – and savoring Memley’s heavenly harmonies – was an option.

Amusingly enough, I had to adjust my attitude toward Caritas’s choice of William Billings’ “I am the Rose of Sharon” past the midway point of a largely repetitive and pedestrian performance. When the famed snippet from the Song of Solomon reached its denouement, “for, lo, the winter is past and the rain is gone,” you could look out the huge St. Alban’s windows and see that the rain really was stopping in response to these pertinent repetitions.

If you missed that, you couldn’t help but notice streaks of bright sunlight suddenly streaming across the front rows of singers. In his intro to the piece, Mims had hoped that the concluding verse would bring an end to the rain. But the power of Caritas’s incantations exceeded this extravagant hope. Repetitions and all, you won’t find me arguing with such cosmic success!

Photos by Perry Tannenbaum