Tag Archives: Margaret Carpenter Haigh

Monteverdi Validated at Myers Park With Venetian Vespers

Review: Venetian Vespers with Bach Akademie Charlotte

 By Perry Tannenbaum

2023~Venetian Vespers-03

March 4, 2023, Charlotte, NC – You might gasp audibly upon learning that The Oxford Dictionary of Music proclaims that Claudio “Monteverdi’s place in the history of Renaissance music can justly be compared to Shakespeare’s in literature.” That high regard was echoed stateside by Ted Libbey in The NPR Listener’s Encyclopedia of Classical Music: “To paraphrase his contemporary Shakespeare, he bestrode the musical world like a colossus.” Yet many at the Myers Park Presbyterian Church; where Bach Akademie Charlotte presented their latest concert, Venetian Vespers conducted by Scott Allen Jarrett; were probably witnessing a live performance of Monteverdi’s music for the first time. Others had likely never heard Monteverdi anywhere but in church and/or on recordings in their entire lives.

As far as I can tell, the Renaissance colossus has never had a hearing at Belk Theater or Knight Theater in Charlotte. I’m fairly certain that my first live encounter with Monteverdi was at Spoleto Festival USA in 1991, when L’Incoronazione di Poppea was presented at Dock Street Theatre. Before then, my revelations had happened at local libraries in Columbia and Charlotte, where I could borrow and fall in love with vinyl recordings of Monteverdi’s Madrigals (there are nine books of them) followed by my discovery of L’Orfeo, the first masterpiece in opera history.

In keeping with the tone of the venues where Bach Akademie usually performs – and the liturgical spirit of their marquee composer – Jarrett, with a small chorus of six voices and an instrumental quintet, focused on two major sacred works that bookended Monteverdi’s career, his Vespro della Beata Vergine (1610) and his Selva morale e spiritual (1641). Sensing a general unfamiliarity with Monteverdi’s music and his importance, Jarrett spoke at length on both, stressing the cultural eminence of Venice at the peak of the Renaissance and Monteverdi’s towering influence over how composers would write for voice after he upended traditional practice by prioritizing text over music.

The texts that Bach Akademie performed were mostly scriptural and liturgical Latin, but Jarrett and his musicians also dipped into the “moral madrigals” found in the Selva collection, with Italian texts written by Francesco Petrarch and Angelo Grillo. In fact, Jarrett’s selections were admirably proportional to the original collections: we had twice as many excerpts from the Selva as we heard from the Vespro, and the Italian songs gave us a balanced representation of the larger collection, which on complete recordings is just over twice the size of the 1610 Vespers.

2023~Venetian Vespers-17

We began and ended the concert with full ensemble pieces from the Selva, starting with “Laudate Dominum” (second version). Sopranos Margaret Carpenter Haigh and Arwen Myers blithely chimed the opening exhortation – “let us praise” – over and over, interspersed with full choral and instrumental passages, along with a couple of merry exchanges between tenors Nick Karageorgiou and i. Four of the six Selva selections were originally for accompaniment by two violins, slots ably filled by two mainstays of Boston’s exemplary Handel and Haydn Society, concertmaster Aisslinn Nosky and Fiona Hughes.

2023~Venetian Vespers-32

Replacing the four trombones in the score as well as playing their own parts, Nosky and Hughes figured more prominently in the “Gloria” that followed Jarrett’s impressive disquisition. This larger-scaled composition also offered more opportunity for the vocalists to shine, the tenors declaiming the title word most often before the sopranos dominated with their filigree on the recurring “Domine.” Thanks to Jarrett’s intro, we were also on the lookout for the heavenly harmony lavished on the stately “peace on earth” passage, enriched by Edmund Milly’s bass-baritone, cellist Guy Fishman, and organist Nicolas Haigh.

2023~Venetian Vespers-13

Accompanied solely by Deborah Fox on theorbo, Myers and Margaret Haigh gave us a marvelous first sampling of the Vespro, “Pulchra es,” set to two amorous verses from the Song of Solomon, delicately straddling the borderline between chastity and seduction as they sang from opposite sides of the chancel. Both sopranos rejoined the male vocalists as we returned to the Selva with “Laudate pueri” (first version). The men harmonized sweetly to launch this setting of Psalm 113 before the sopranos quickened the tempo and lifted the music to joy and jubilation.

I wondered how Jarrett and Bach Akademie planned to handle “Duo Seraphim,” the next Vespro selection, since it was written for three tenors, according to the program booklet, and the conductor deployed Karageorgiou and Wilson to opposite ends of the stage. Akademie’s artistic director must have also anticipated some suspense in the room, for it wasn’t until halfway through the piece that the third tenor walked to his place upstage, behind organist Nicolas Haigh – Milly, the bass! While Milly’s tessitura didn’t need to reach quite as high as the two other tenors’, he did quite well, actually sounding louder than his comrades on a few notes. Of course, there’s another way of construing the drama of Jarrett’s staging. At the exact point where the text departed momentarily from its familiar Isaiah 6 refrain, and the heavenly witnesses to the seraphs’ “Holy, holy, holy” call were cataloged as “the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit,” Milly took his spot upstage before the three were said to be one.

Composed while Monteverdi was still in service to the Duke of Mantua, the “Dixit Dominus” for six voices and instruments seemed to be specially crafted for the acoustics of the Venetian Basilica of San Marco where he would later serve as the chapel maestro. John Eliot Gardner’s recording of the complete Vespro at San Marco with the English Baroque Soloists in 1986 implicitly made that point, and Jarrett, both in his introductory remarks and with the ensemble’s performance, made that point explicitly at Myers Park Presbyterian.

2023~Venetian Vespers-31

Although she didn’t get much of the vocal spotlight, alto Laura Atkinson picked up a microphone to preface the remaining three Selva selections. Both of the poems that followed, written by Monteverdi for the other five voices, proved worthy of the pulpit, as their translated titles indicated: Petrarch’s “O blind ones! What use is all your toiling?” and Grillo’s “This life is a flash of lightning.” Reminding us that this was Bach Akademie and that the Charlotte Bach Festival is slated for its return on June 10-17 (if interim managing director Garrett Murphy’s fundraising goal is met), Jarrett and company gave us a small-scale preview of the plenty to come with Johann’s “Sanctus in D.” Not the swiftest version you’ll ever hear, but light, lively, and irresistible.

“Beatus vir” (first version), set to Psalm 112, was an apt finale to this Venetian Vespers concert, carrying forward the festive mood of the penultimate Bach with invigorating vocal counterpoint – Monteverdi writing here for six exactly voices at last – and providing Nosky and Hughes, as the two violinists also prescribed by the score, with their best opportunities to shine. But it wasn’t until the music slowed down, where the Psalmist spoke on the steadfastness of a god-fearing man in the face of evil tidings, that the finale became truly grand. The sheer massiveness of the sound summoned up the church to mix its harmonies, reminding us that we were in a house of worship.

Charlotte Bach Festival Ends in Splendor, With Roaring Trumpets and a Double Dose of Oratorios

Review: Bach’s Easter and Ascension Oratorios

By Perry Tannenbaum

2022~Charlotte Bach Fest-135

June 18, 2022, Charlotte, NC – Founded in 2017 with the North Carolina Baroque Festival, Bach Akademie Charlotte presented a precocious and ambitious first edition of the Charlotte Bach Festival in June 2018. Unmistakably modeled after the renowned Oregon Bach Festival, where Akademie artistic director Scott Allen Jarrett has frequently performed, Charlotte Bach figured to flourish in a soil that is rich in churches and choirs. The second Festival in 2019, bookended by Orchestral Suite No. 2 and the St. Matthew Passion, was even more bodacious than the first, which had opened with the Orchestral Suite No. 1 and closed with the Mass in B Minor. These two acts would be tough to follow at a third Festival, but until COVID struck in 2020, nobody knew how tough. Barely three weeks after I had seen the Festival schedule for June 2020, the pandemic cancellations began, eventually including Charlotte Bach III. By the time Charlotte Bach 2022 opened at Myers Park Presbyterian Church on June 11, the Festival had been in hibernation longer than it had been live, soldiering on online with abbreviated lineups in a virtual format.

During the hiatus, there was some notable reorganizing and rebranding within Charlotte Bach, but instead of suffering any attrition, the overall lineup for 2022 was actually more robust than the one announced for 2020 – with numerous additions, one very logical substitution, and no sacrifices. Instead of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 on opening night, Aisslinn Nosky played Bach Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, BWV 1041 – the same piece she had played and conducted in her Charlotte Symphony debut in January 2018.

The performance highlighted Nosky’s installation as the concertmaster of Bach Akademie Charlotte Orchestra. After announcing Nosky’s new role at the Festival (she had been a guest artist at the 2019 fest), Jarrett announced that Guy Fishman (a guest artist at the inaugural 2018 Festival) had signed on as principal cellist with the BA|Charlotte Orchestra. Not to be overshadowed, Fishman reappeared in a midweek “Bach in a New Light” concert, playing a Domenico Gabrielli morsel and Bach’s first two Cello Suites, accompanied by laser light projections from Salty Robot Productions.

Duplicating its opening and closing concerts, respectively, in Asheville and Winston-Salem, Charlotte Bach also widened its reach within the Queen City, proving that the McColl Center could be an edgy and funky enough site for the Fishman light show and that the spectacularly renovated Sandra Levine Theater, on the Queens University campus, was acoustically attuned to the splendors of Bach’s Easter and Ascension Oratorios. Maybe there was some doubt whether the Easter and Ascension pairing at the Levine sufficiently upstaged the Violin Concerto and Dixit Dominus combo at Myers Park Presbyterian to definitively rise to the loftiness of the Festival’s finale placement and Masterwork billing. Whatever the reason, Handel’s Zadok the Priest was added to the already ample triple-trumpet heft of the Bach oratorios. Thank you!

2022~Charlotte Bach Fest-141

Even before the BA|Charlotte Festival Choir stood for the first time, the trumpet triumvirate – Steven Marquardt, Perry Sutton, and Josh Cohen – held forth brilliantly in the Easter Oratorio Sinfonia, gracefully counterbalanced by oboists Geoffrey Burgess and Margaret Owens. Tension and anticipation before the choral outbreak of resurrection jubilation were further sustained as Burgess lingered as the sole solo voice, playing a lovely intervening Adagio. Joined by timpanist Jonathan Hess, the trumpet trio then returned at full throttle, heralding the Chorus and its hearty “Kommt, ellet und laufet” (Come, hasten and run) invitation. Tenor Steven Soph and bass Jason Steigerwalt, so imposing as the Evangelist and Jesus (Steigerwalt singing the baritone role) in the Festival’s three midweek lecture-concerts devoted to Bach’s St. John Passion, then sang a duet, clarifying that it is the resurrection that has gladdened their hearts.

2022~Charlotte Bach Fest-110

Appropriately enough, newly rising talent took over most of the arias and recitative that followed, demonstrating the prestige of gaining a spot with the Festival Choir as Vocal Fellows. Bass Chris Talbot as John, in the first Recitative section that followed the huge chorale, and soprano Addy Sterrett as Mary Jacobi, subsequently drew their own solos. But tenor David Morales also reappeared as Peter in the Recitative following Sterrett’s lovely “Selle deine Spezereien” (O Soul, your spices) Aria, by far the longest Aria of the night, and alto Eliana Mei-Xing Barwinski also returned as Mary Magdalene.

Yet it was charming to see Festival Choir regulars also in the spotlight, Soph backed by Owens and Burgess (both switching to recorders) and alto Sylvia Leith accompanied by Owens on oboe d’amore. Marquardt, Sutton, and Cohen returned to the stage with their elongated plunger-less trumpets to join the Festival Choir once again, which had found something fresh to celebrate in their finale after much grieving, yearning, and sighing from the vocal and instrumental soloists during their absence: Jesus had conquered Hell and the Devil, and Heaven’s gates were opening for the Lion of Judah.

Alternately known as Coronation Anthem No. 1, Zadok the Priest also creates tension and anticipation with a churning crescendo of strings that could remind you of Philip Glass minimalism if you didn’t see the thunder and lightning of chorus and brass standing onstage, readying for action. In an instant, understatement flipped to overstatement when the storm broke loose at the Levine, for neither Zadok nor the prophet Nathan is exactly an Old Testament headliner of the magnitude of Solomon, held at bay until the end of the opening line.

2022~Charlotte Bach Fest-132Handel certainly packs plenty of into the brassy choral payload, less than five minutes long, that pounces upon us after the relatively quiet preamble that gurgles along for more than 25% of the composition. Bach might have dispatched a solo vocalist to narrate the prose of Zadok and Nathan anointing Solomon as King of Israel, saving the exclamations – “God save the King!” “Amen!” “Alleluia!” and “May the King live for ever!” – for the Choir. No such middle ground applied to this Handel masterwork, and Jarrett, the brass, and the Festival Choir all reveled in firing away at us in unrelenting fortissimo. Collectively, they were thrilling.

Shorter than the Easter Oratorio, Bach’s Ascension Oratorio was sensibly paired with Zadok after intermission, showcasing the Festival Choir more intensively. The more compacted – and more symmetrical – scheme has its choral segments evenly spaced at the beginning, middle, and end of the oratorio, rather than merely as two massive bookends, while discarding the two instrumental preambles that ushered in the Easter story. Instead of the same vocalists we had seen before, four more permanent members of the Festival Choir handled the two Arias and six Recitatives evenly distributed around the midpoint chorale. More satisfying than this architectural symmetry, of course, was the sustained excellence of the singing, underscoring the awesome depth and quality of the ensemble.

2022~Charlotte Bach Fest-115Three of the four featured Ascension vocalists have been with Bach Akademie since the beginning, except for tenor Gene Stenger, the Evangelist, who signed up in 2019. The Evangelist role gave Stenger the lion’s share of the scriptural verses in this Oratorio’s libretto, stitched together from Luke, Mark, and Acts, with bass Edmund Milly, no less dignified, standing in for the Two Men in White Apparel who promise the Apostles that Jesus will return from Heaven “in like manner” as they have just seen him go. Besides that key passage, Milly drew a more poignant Recitative earlier in the narrative, “Ach, Jesu, ist dein Abschied schon so nah?” (Ah, Jesus, is Thy parting now so near?)

Bach’s plum Arias here both went to women, alto Kim Leeds poignantly following Milly’s recit with “Ach, bleibe doch, mein liebstes Leben” (Ah stay, my dearest life) and following him again in Part 2, after the angelic promise, with another lovely plaint, the “Ach ja! So komme bald zurück” (Ah yes! So come back soon again) recitative. Stegner’s final recitative, concluding the narrative with a brief mashup of Acts 1:12 and Luke 24:52, sufficed to flip the mood from gloom to joy, giving soprano Margaret Carpenter Haigh the opportunity to rejoice greatly in the final Aria of the evening, vying with Sterrett and Soph and Leeds for the mightiest vocal conquest of the night, surpassing them only in charisma.

Enhancing the dramatic contrast between sorrow and celebration, Haigh could draw upon the ample instrumental support of three wind players playing contrapuntally behind her – oboist Burgess, and two flutists, Colin St-Martin and Rodrigo Tarrazza – the first musicians to rise up during the entire Ascension. Switching places with co-principal Marquardt, Cohen played lead trumpet in the latter oratorio. All three brass players returned from the wings for the final Chorus, an earthshaking fantasia set to a stanza from a Gottfried Wilhelm Sacer hymn, summoning the Christian savior to reappear.

He may not have quite reigned for ever and ever yet, but Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) seemed to have retained much of his power 272 years after his death, thanks in part to better playing and singing at the Charlotte Bach Festival than any performance this imperishable genius may have actually heard in his lifetime. Georg Frideric Handel (1685-1759) has also had a pretty fine run, as the two baroque greats, born less than a month apart, close in on their 340th birthdays. It was good to have the elder Handel take his place in the Charlotte Bach programming for 2022, helping the to enhance our delight this year and to sharpen our eagerness for Festivals to come.

Originally published on 6/21 at CVNC.org

A Well-Proportioned “Passion” Caps the Charlotte Bach Fest

Review: St. Matthew Passion at the Charlotte Bach Festival

2019~Charlotte Bach Fest-201

By Perry Tannenbaum

The most dramatic moment at the second annual Charlotte Bach Festival may have been a moment of silence – at the climax of the St. Matthew Passion, after Bach’s Evangelist had declared that Jesus had died. Festival conductor and artistic director Scott Allen Jarrett maintained that silence longer than any I could remember on a recording or at a live performance, including Jarrett’s own with the Charlotte Symphony in November 2013.

After this loaded interlude at Myers Park Presbyterian Church, like the world itself coming to a halt, the BA|Charlotte Cantata Choir was exquisitely empathetic and hushed singing, “Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden, So scheide nicht von me” (When I depart one day, do not depart from me). The chilling desolation of this reaction was all the more poignant because of the power that the 25 singers in the Cantata Choir had poured forth just minutes earlier in mocking and taunting the crucified Jesus as he was dying on the cross.

2019~Charlotte Bach Fest-221

There had also been power aplenty from the soloists, as we were quickly reminded after the prayerful choral lament, when tenor Stephen Soph as the Evangelist continued Matthew’s narrative – with the rending of the Holy Temple, the earthquake, the opening of graves, and the rising of the dead upon Jesus’ death. No less powerful as Jesus, baritone Jason Steigerwalt’s most memorable singing had come in his Part I recitatives, at the Last Supper and during the subsequent episodes leading up to his arrest on the first day of Passover. Of course, his last words, “Eli, Eli, lama asabthani?” had a special plaintiveness.

With Jarrett’s past and present connections to the Oregon Bach Festival, the Handel and Haydn Society, Seraphic Fire, and Charlotte Symphony, the high quality of the Cantata Choir – and the instrumental and vocal soloists he can lure to Charlotte – is not at all surprising, even if their power and dynamic range can sometimes come as a shock. All 22 of the core members were accorded extended bios in the rear of the festival program booklet. Additional space was carved out for the four Vocal Fellows who fortified the Choir during the Passion and figured prominently in the midweek, midday Bach Experience performances of two Michaelmas cantatas, Nos. 19 and 149.

2019~Charlotte Bach Fest-194

Since both the core singers and fellows were chosen by Jarrett from nationwide talent pools, it wasn’t surprising that soloists singing the Passion arias were on the same level as those who had sung for Jarrett in 2013. What astonished me more was what soloists from a reduced core Choir had achieved the previous Saturday night when they performed Bach’s Magnificat at the festival’s Opening Celebration. Overall, performances at the more intimate Christ Church by sopranos Sarah Yanovitch and MaryRuth Lown, mezzos Elizabeth Eschen and Kim Leeds, tenors Patrick Muehleise and Gene Stenger, and baritone Steigerwalt had equaled or surpassed those I’ve heard on recordings conducted by Helmuth Rilling, John Eliot Gardiner, and Masaaki Suzuki.

There were additional soloists awaiting their turns at the Celebration when another Michaelmas cantata, No. 130, followed the Orchestral Suite No. 2. These included the sweet-voiced tenor David Kurtenbach, who would sing the recitative and aria at the Matthew Passion during the High Priests’ interrogation of Jesus, and – more impressive yet – bass-baritone Charles Wesley Evans, who would take the stage at the Passion in the wake of Judas’ remorse and suicide, transforming after the touching “Gebt mir meinem Jesum weider!” (Give me my Jesus back!) into the role of Pontius Pilate.

2019~Charlotte Bach Fest-208

Other superb choristers stepped forth at Myers Park Presbyterian who had not soloed during the Opening Celebration. Most conspicuous was countertenor Jay Carter, whose recitatives and arias suffused the most intense episodes of Part II with sublimity and pathos, during the scourging of Jesus and at Golgatha, the site of the crucifixion. Edmund Milly, who hadn’t sung at the Celebration, didn’t get his first solos until Simon of Cyrene carried the holy cross, lavishing his rich bass-baritone on “Komm, sübes Kreuz” (Come, sweet Cross), with a viola da gamba obbligato from Gail Schroeder. We had no sampling of soprano Margaret Carpenter Haigh’s silvery lyricism until Jesus was brought before Pilate and she sang her recitative and the “Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben” (Out of love my Savior wants to die) aria, with traverso flutist Colin St. Martin playing the intro and obbligato. St. Martin’s work at the Celebration in the Orchestral Suite No. 2 had been even more substantial and impressive.

2019~Charlotte Bach Fest-110

Five other members of the North Carolina Baroque Orchestra played obbligatos with Cantata vocalists, none more ballyhooed than concertmaster Aisslinn Nosky, who made gorgeous music together with Leeds in the mezzo’s “Erbarme dich” (Have mercy) aria. Following in the footsteps of cellist Guy Fishman, Nosky had been the second Handel and Haydn Society principal in successive years to perform at Charlotte Bach’s Visiting Artist Recital Series. In partnership with the American Guild of Organists, the festival presented Isabelle Demers as their other recitalist. The big improvement here was a change from the Uptown location at St. Peter’s Episcopal, where Bálint Karosi had performed, to Myers Park United Methodist. Not only did the chocolatey organ sound marvelous, it was at the front of the sanctuary, where we could actually see Demers play without having to turn around awkwardly in our seats.

Keeping with the precedent set by last year’s recitalists, both Demers and Nosky expanded the scope of the festival beyond all-Bach. Demers branched out into organ works by Alkan and Widor, and Nosky brought us a Fantaisie for Solo Violin by Telemann as well as two sections from Stand Still, a piece written for her by Michael Oesterle. Funkier by far, Charlotte Symphony trombonist Tom Burge inaugurated a new Bach at the Brauhaus event in the back room of Free Range Brewing on a wee stage that seemed, with its string of carnival bulbs and crimson curtains, best suited for magic acts or stand-up comics. Between sips of the pub’s brew – and banter from the audience – Burge played a Bach transcription, selections from Bone Kill by Michael Davis, and after slyly fishing out a euphonium from behind the curtain, Paganini’s most famous Caprice.

2019~Charlotte Bach Fest-151

Nosky’s appearance was another kind of departure from last year, extended so that she could linger and gently whip the NC Baroque’s strings into sharper shape for the Passion – and to help in spreading the festival to Chapel Hill, where the masterwork was given at University United Methodist before its closing night performance in Charlotte. The were fewer hired guns brought in from afar to fortify NC Baroque than came to sing with the Cantata Choir, and the Passion ensemble was a lean-and-mean 32, including Nosky and organist Nicolas Haigh.

The anemic organ Haigh contended with was the only fault I found with the Baroque Orchestra, not their SlimFast number. Playing on period instruments, the company places a greater premium on authenticity – and precision – than on raw power, which is fine with me. When added muscle was needed, Steven Marquardt and Josh Cohen shared leadership of a corps of valveless baroque trumpets that bloomed gloriously in the Magnificat to launch the festival and in three Michaelmas cantatas afterwards. And just before the halfway mark at the Passion, a 10-voice children’s choir from Charlotte Latin School briefly appeared.

Never too big, and never too small. When the Cantata Choir and the Orchestra reached the final “Wir setzen uns mit Tränen neider” (We sit down with tears) of the Passion, there was soothing lullaby aspect to the music that overshadowed the usual community lamentation we hear from larger groups. Tuning in to the “rest gently” motif later in this chorus, Jarrett likely had that restful aim in mind when he hushed his forces once again. That was also fine with me. Very fine.

L’Académie du Roi Soleil Unleashes Pent-Up Power in “Treacherous Love” Cantatas

Review: “L’Académie du Roi Soleil” at Tate Hall and the CPCC campus

By Perry Tannenbaum

2019~Treacherous Love_0018

Two baroque companies have risen to prominence over the past couple of seasons in Charlotte, different in size and scope but with obvious affinities. Over that span, the newer Bach Akademie Charlotte has performed two cantata series in Charlotte and nearby towns at various churches, now preparing to stage its second annual Charlotte Bach Festival in June. Not so high-profile, L’Académie du Roi Soleil has settled into Charlotte within the past year after a concert history that has traversed the Carolinas, with transoceanic excursions to Oxford and Cambridge, England.

While it’s possible that the Bach Akademie may branch out into works by Handel, Telemann and the French baroque masters in seasons to come, Académie has already planted its Gallic flag. Soprano Margaret Carpenter Haigh and harpsichordist Nicolas Haigh, who co-founded Roi Soleil in 2013, have established themselves as Bach Akademie mainstays as well. In their return to Tate Hall and the CPCC campus, Roi Soleil continued to emphasize the Sun King in their program.

Or should I say “Programme”? For in their terminology, their typeface, and in their performances, L’Académie proved that they have a style of their own. Starting their presentation at 12:30 PM, however, wasn’t a new wrinkle, for midday concerts are fairly routine at both the Oregon and Charlotte Bach Festivals. In fact, when L’Académie performed Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbres at Tate last March, that concert was also a midweek lunchtime event. Fewer Francophiles were likely to be as familiar with this year’s lineup, which included Jean-Féry Rebel, Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre, Louis-Nicolas Clérambault – and a devastating theme: “Treacherous Love, Passion and Vengeance in 18th Century France.”

2019~Treacherous Love_0011

Giving Margaret Haigh the opportunity to make a solo entrance, Michael Haigh and Roi’s two string musicians, violinist Cynthia Black and viola da gamba player Gail Anne Schroeder, began the afternoon with Jean-Féry Rebel’s Violin Sonata No. 5. One of Louis XIV’s “24 violons du Roi,” Rebel came across as a blithe spirit in my first brush with the composer’s work. Especially in the third Viste movement, Rebel offered Black ample opportunities to impress with her vitality and virtuosity. In the opening movement, where Viste was just the first of three tempo markings – with a middle Grave section providing contrast – Black displayed the richness of her tone almost immediately. Nor was there any inwardness or solemnity in the Sarabande that followed, where the trio’s sound remained sweet instead of sad. After the exhilarating pace of the penultimate Viste, the final Gigue slowed down noticeably but remained joyously danceable.

When she emerged to perform the two cantatas on the bill, Margaret Haigh did not dwell on Jacquet de la Guerre’s gender in introducing her Semelé. Unlike Handel’s opera, which expands upon Ovid’s 53 lines on Semele in The Metamorphoses – with a libretto by William Congreve! – Jacquet’s cantata actually condensed Ovid’s original, so Haigh and the program booklet were obliged to fill us in on the backstory, where the Roman goddess Juno, jealous of her husband Jupiter’s love for Semele, disguises herself as the human maiden’s nursemaid and convinces her that she must get proof from Jupiter of his divinity. Here is where Jacquet began, sending her soprano onstage to tell us that Jupiter had rashly sworn to grant Semele anything she desired before she surprised him with her wish. The rules are the same as they were in the Old Testament: humans who view the face of god must die.

From then on, Haigh became Semelé, anticipating Jupiter’s arrival and – amid mighty displays of lightning – chiding herself for her doubts. Haigh’s best moments came when Semelé’s triumph was at hand and in her ensuing immolation. Jacquet gave the instrumental accompaniment an emphatic pulse here that the musicians picked up on, and Haigh took it upon herself to dramatize Semelé’s giddy vainglory, acquiring a strength in her “Quel triomphe, quelle Victoire” air we hadn’t heard earlier. For both Handel and Jacquet add on a sexy spice to Ovid’s narrative, a hint the Semele aspires to become a goddess herself if Jupiter couples with her in the way he would with Juno. “Je vais joüir de sort des dieux!” she exults. She will enjoy the lot of the gods.

Jacquet has her bragging that she knew how to please Jupiter, and Haigh reveled in repeating those hubristic vaunts. Our heroine’s fall is pretty steep in the ensuing recitative, and Haigh was suitably vulnerable, surprised, and pathetic in describing her own destruction. Haigh then reverted to her previous role as Jacquet’s narrator, drawing a moral that tenderness and warmth should be what we ask of love rather than blazing fire and glory. No wonder, then, that there’s no mention that Semele’s pregnancy incited Juno’s jealousy or that Dionysus, god of wine and revelry, would be her son.

In Clérambault’s Médée, no such restraints applied. After an introductory recitative, Haigh could immerse herself in the wickedly vengeful queen and stay there. Yet Clérambault humanized his Medea more than we might expect if we’re familiar with the vengeance Euripides ascribed to her in his ancient Greek tragedy. Taking his cue from the Golden Fleece narrative of the Argonautica, the Frenchman ignored the more fiendish aspect of Euripides’ storyline, when Medea kills Jason’s – and her own – sons. Clérambault concentrates instead on Médée’s ruminations before she kills Glauce, the Corinthian royal that her husband has abandoned her for. Where Euripides had Medea pausing to consider before slaying her own children, Clérambault had her pausing before murdering Jason, remembering how much she once loved him, and deciding to vent her rage on her rival.

2019~Treacherous Love_0016

Without needing to revert to her narrative role, without a particle of self-pity, and with the support of demons that Médée rabidly summons from hell, Haigh could be even more manic and powerful. Haigh seemed to revel in the give-and-take, the tender moments of fond memories giving way to fury, resolve, and exultation. Clérambault’s score also gave the musicians greater latitude to vent their energies. Before Médée called upon the demon jealousy, “Cruelle fille des enfers (Cruel daughter of hell),” Nicolas Haigh pounded a march-like intro on the keyboard, so when Margaret Haigh sang out, casting her spell, it was like Médée was giving the demons their marching orders.

There would be no neat moralizing here. After a recitative confirming that Médée’s father, the sun god Helios, had favored her cause, Black’s violin feverishly cued the “Volés, Démons, volés! (Fly, demons, fly!)” finale. Haigh sounded fully aware that she didn’t need to save herself for anything afterwards, and this was one of those times when Tate Hall couldn’t contain the power of her voice. Even when she was done venting and raging, the fury of Médée’s vengeful wickedness continued in Black’s violin, leaving us with the feeling that we had just witnessed the unleashing of an awesome elemental force.

Bach Akademie Charlotte’s Epiphany Concert Includes Schütz and Amon Appetizers in a Cantata Feast

Review: Bach Akademie Charlotte’s Epiphany Concert

By Perry Tannenbaum

2019~Epiphany Cantatas_0014

Word has spread quickly about Bach Akademie Charlotte, their professional choir, and their polyphonic excellence. After their biggest splash last spring, the first annual Charlotte Bach Festival with its Oregon Bach aspirations, Akademie reconnected with their audience in the fall with “Priceless Treasure: Bach and the Motet Tradition” at Christ Church Charlotte. They rekindled the flame in a midwinter program, “Epiphany Cantatas,” last Saturday night at Myers Park Presbyterian Church in front of a robust turnout. It wasn’t all Bach or all cantatas, with motets by Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) and Blasius Amon (ca. 1560-1590) sprinkled in between, and while it’s always so apt to hear Bach’s sacred cantatas in a church, these were sung and played nearly four Sundays after this year’s Feast of Epiphany.

Programmed and conducted by artistic director Scott Allen Jarrett, rest assured that the concert was aptly themed on the Epiphany celebration. While the BA Cantata Choir was reduced in size to 12, about half the maximum number that performed the B Minor Mass last June, there was nothing off-season about its membership, including choristers and soloists who flew in from as far north as New York and as far west as California. The 18-member North Carolina Baroque Orchestra also sported ace guests who had traveled from afar.

2019~Epiphany Cantatas_0002

The opening piece of the evening, “Fallt mit Danken, Fallt mit Leben” (“prostrate yourselves with thanks and praise”), was easily the most extended work of the evening – but not exactly a cantata. Actually, it was the fourth part of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and, celebrating the circumcision of Jesus, performed on New Year’s Day. Do the math, recall the Jewish custom, and you’ll know why. There’s a pretty little orchestral prelude before the chorus enters that gave hornists Chris Caudill and Rachel Niketopoulus a chance to shine, and once the Cantata Choir broke in, there were appealing spaces provided for oboists Geoffrey Burgess and Sung Lee. Burgess surpassed himself later on with his charming obbligato in the “Flösst, mein Feiland, Flösst dein Namen” (“does your name, my savior, instill”) aria where Molly Quinn floated her echoes, soprano to soprano, from upstage to Arwen Myers’s lead vocal up front.

As the Evangelist, tenor Bryon Grohman underscored the deeper significance of the circumcision, reminding us in “Und da Acht Tage” recitative that Jesus was given his name during that eighth-day ritual. Most impressive of the solo vocalists, starting with the length of his contribution, was bass baritone Jason Steigerwalt, who drew two recitatives during this piece. The first of these, “Immanuel, o Süsses Wort!” (“Emmanuel, oh sweet word!”), not only showed off Steigerwelt’s gorgeous lower range to better advantage, it pleasantly surprised us when three sopranos stood up to accompany him midway through.

2019~Epiphany Cantatas_0011

Instrumentally, some of the accompaniment for the soloists was spare, and while organist Nick Haigh played ably, a sweeter more robust instrument would have especially elevated the thinner recitatives. The Choir bolstered Steigerwalt’s second recitative, “Wohlan, dein Name Soll Allein” (“well then, your name alone”), effectively following the echo aria. Two violinists, Martha Perry and Janelle Davis, joined tenor Gene Stenger in his genial “Ich will nur dir zu Ehren leben” (“I will live only to honor you”) aria, with additional backup from Haigh, Simon Martyn-Ellis’s theorbo, and Susan Yelanjian’s violone. The two horns returned with the orchestra and Choir for the closing Chorale, raising the devotional level to exuberance and joy while repeatedly reminding us – with six mentions of the name Jesus – of the meaning of the day.

Schutz’s Das ist je gewisslich wahr, based on the testimonial recorded in the opening chapter of 1 Timothy, immediately impressed with the awesome layered entrance of the Choir in verse 15 (New RSV): “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the foremost.” Radically contrasting the slow opening bars of this motet with the speed-up that followed, Jarrett and his Cantata Choir dramatized the swiftness of Christ’s coming more emphatically than I’ve heard on any recording, with a light sense of liberation emanating from the women’s voices.

2019~Epiphany Cantatas_0006

Briefly showcased as the Evangelist in BWV 248.IV, Grohman made more indelible impressions in the tenor recitative and aria of Bach’s BWV 124 Cantata for January 7, Meinem Jesum, lass ich nicht (“I will not let go of my Jesus”). With Burgess excelling again in a lovely obbligato, Grohman was especially smooth in the aria, “Und wenn der herte Todesschlag” (“and when the cruel stroke of death”), notwithstanding its wide intervals. Burgess also sweetened the opening chorus, but they were all soon to be upstaged by the soprano-alto duet sung by Margaret Carpenter Haigh and countertenor Jay Carter, “Entziehe dich eilends, mein Herze, die Welt” (“withdraw swiftly, my heart, from the world”).

Jarrett boldly speculated that Amon’s three-minute motet, “Magi videntes stellam” (“the Magi, seeing the star”), was likely the composer’s Charlotte debut. Finding that the piece represents one-third of Amon’s output available on Spotify, I won’t dispute that assertion. “Rorat Coeli de super,” mixing solo and choral vocals, would be my choice as the best of the three Amon titles I’ve heard, but the Cantata Choir advocated beautifully for this moment of biblical revelation, and it was certainly a fitting bridge to Bach’s Epiphany Cantata, BWV 65, with its mentions of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

2019~Epiphany Cantatas_0008

No surprise, then, that Jarrett drew our attention to the gloss on the iconic gifts that Stenger would sing in his tenor recitative, equating gold with faith, frankincense with prayer, and myrrh with patience. Jarrett also welcomed back the horn players in his introductory remarks, pointing out the extra tubing that Caudill and Niketopoulus would be adding to their valveless instruments, allowing them to play lower than before. Burgess and Lee were also asked to stand and display their curved oboes da caccia, the third different kind of oboe they would play during the evening, having slipped a pair of oboe d’amores past us earlier.

First performed on Epiphany Sunday in 1724 and one of Bach’s earliest Leipzig compositions, Sie warden aus Saba alle kommen is framed by the chorus as the fulfillment of Isiah’s prophecy in 60:6, “all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.” Steigerwelt returned to give the baritone’s recitative explicating the fulfillment of the prophecy. Then he sang a very lovely aria, “Gold aus Ophir ist zu schlecht” (“gold from Ophir is too base”), exhorting Christians to offer their hearts instead of mere gold as their gifts to the newborn. With its own orchestral intro, the climactic tenor aria, “Nimm mich dir zu eigen hin” (‘take me to you as your own”), offered Stenger the chance to match Steigerwalt’s exploits, and he responded with his heartiest, most heartfelt singing of the evening.

The orchestral postlude to Stenger’s aria, peppered with pulsing horns and exchanges between a pair of recorders, was actually livelier than the closing chorale, which brought the concert to a calm, anthemic close. Altogether, this Epiphany concert was a memorable enough feast to leave us looking forward to the 2019 Charlotte Bach Festival, already scheduled for June 7-16, culminating with performances of the St. Matthew Passion on the final two nights.

The Queen City Has a Regal New Bach Festival to Call Its Own

42857183534_3fc07101fe_kReview: Charlotte Bach Festival~Opening Celebration

By Perry Tannenbaum

Boasting unmistakable DNA from the Oregon Bach Festival, at the podium and in its administrative offices, the new Bach Akademie Charlotte has launched its first annual Charlotte Bach Festival in grand style, heralding national ambitions. The Festival Opening Celebration filled the chapel at Christ Church Charlotte with listeners eager to hear Bach’s vocal music performed by a professional choir and to see Johann Sebastian’s orchestral music played on authentic baroque instruments. Conducted by Scott Allen Jarrett, the combined forces of the Akademie’s Cantata Choir and the North Carolina Baroque Orchestra obliged, filling the room with robust, cleanly sculpted sound. All hands were on deck for Cantata 147, “Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben” including guest instrumentalists and vocalists. This centerpiece was preceded by the Orchestra Suite No. 1 in C Major, where we made the acquaintance of the fullest assembly of the NC Baroque Orchestra that I’ve ever seen. Concluding the concert, the “Singet demrrn ein neues Lied” motet showcased the Choir with light accompaniment from keyboardist Nicolas Haigh, violone player Sue Yelanjan, and NC Baroque executive director, cellist Barbara Krumdieck.

Jarrett is not merely a guest conductor at Oregon Bach Festival. He directs the Vocal Fellows Program there, and he is slated to deliver the lecture concerts of their Discovery Series this summer. Adam Romey, the new managing director, is the son of Kathy Romey, longtime assistant of OBF founder Helmuth Rilling; and the Bach Akademie president, Michael H. Trammell, has sung with Rilling at festival in Europe. In welcoming the audience and in introducing the pieces, Jarrett reminded me of how Helmuth Rilling engaged his OBF audiences when he was artistic director there. He isn’t as sparing, concise, gnomic, or orotund as Charlotte Symphony’s Christopher Warren-Green in making his remarks. There is a more relaxed informality and a gentle pedagogical touch. Jarrett didn’t walk off into the wings between pieces and, since he had served as music director of the Oratorio Singers of Charlotte from 2004 to 2015, he could address us with a familiarity that must have taken Rilling years to achieve in Eugene, Oregon.

Intimacy between the audience and the musicians was sustained by the compact size of the ensembles, a mere 14 musicians taking the stage for the Orchestral Suite. Yet it did not take long for these members of NC Baroque to prove they could produce a roar in the opening Ouverture movement. Deceptively stately, for the oboes are doubling and quadrupling the pace with embellishments, the movement is far longer than any one of those that follow, with a slow-fast-slow-fast-slow structure that is most satisfying when the tempo contrasts are emphatic. Not only were the wind players on point – oboists Margaret Owens and Sung Lee backed by bassoonist Allen Hamrick – but the string players, led by concertmaster Martha Perry, were also up to the task, sounding effortless in the swift episodes. There was a nice balance later on in the Gavotte movements when strings and winds veered off in different directions and a delicious blend afterwards between the sections in the Menuets. The paired Bourées were also impressive, the strings showing their nimbleness in the fleet outer portions of this movement and, in the middle, Owens and Sung interweaving nicely over Hamrick’s continuo.

Glorious was a better description of the Cantata 147 performance than merely impressive, for all of the forces at Jarrett’s command were at their shining best – and the music includes the familiar “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” one of Bach’s greatest hits, played twice to conclude each of its two parts. Here Josh Cohen made his first appearance with his valveless natural trumpet, launching the cantata with some stunning flourishes. Most of the vocal soloists were drawn from the Charlotte Cantata Choir, underscoring the fact that Jarrett has chosen the crème de la crème of Charlotte’s plentiful choral talent. I was most delighted by Edmund Milly’s renditions of the bass recitative (“Stubbornness can blind the mighty”) and the bass aria in the penultimate song (“I shall sing of Jesus’ miracles”), both ringing with power and authority, yet there was also considerable power from soprano Margaret Carpenter Haigh in her aria (“Prepare now, O Jesus, the way”).

With native talent of that caliber, the imports figured to be outstanding, and they were. Countertenor Charles Humphries was definitely a highlight in the alto aria (“Be not ashamed, O soul”), with a lovely obbligato from Owens over Hamrick’s bassline. Tenor Patrick Muehleise had the earnest warmth that his aria demanded (“Help me, Jesus, to acknowledge Thee”), giving Krumdieck, who is so often relegated to continuo at local concerts, a chance to show her true mettle in the cello obbligato. Among the obbligatos, I don’t think any outshone the paired oboes of Owens and Sung behind alto Elizabeth Eschen’s sweet recitative (“The wondrous hand of God’s omnipotence”). For sheer luminosity, however, nothing could compare with the live performances of the “Jesu” movements, numbers 6 (“I am blest to have Jesus”) and 10 (“Jesus remains my joy”). The familiar melody is played by the orchestra, but it’s the stately choral singing that elevates the music heavenward. Which melody is accompanying the other? Part of what nearly brought me to tears, besides the sheer beauty of the performance, were the realizations of how rarely such music is heard in a live concert and the foretaste of how much this new festival could mean to this community. Jarrett delivered an additional foretaste in his introduction to this cantata, explaining its architecture, a glimpse of what he would be doing later in the Festival when will clone his work at OBF’s Discovery Series and bring it Charlotte as The Bach Experience, exploring and then performing Cantatas 75 and 76 at Myers Park United Methodist Church in separate midday concerts.

Concluding the Opening Celebration, the Cantata Choir sounded relaxed and celebratory in their motet after scaling to the pinnacle of this concert. Jarrett didn’t let up on the ensemble in the opening movement (“Sing a new song to the Lord”), calling for a slightly brisker tempo than I’ve usually heard, and I’ve certainly encountered more hushed and reverent accounts of the choruses in the middle movement. Yet there was still a definite éclat when the ensemble lit into the final “Lobet den Herrn in seinen Taten” (“Praise the Lord in His works”), similar to the opening movement in its ecumenical return to the mother of us all, the Psalms of the Old Testament. Once more, Jarrett and the Choir accelerated with effortless speed, producing satisfying layers of melody, rich textures and counterpoint, building to what many people would call a cathedral of sound. Less pretentious folk could simply – and rightly – call this concert a grand opening.