The Bach Dynasty: JS Bach’s Forebears, Academy of Ancient Music, Wigmore Hall, 24 September 2010

A very interesting concert, this. We had heard a fair amount of music by JS Bach’s many composer/descendents, but I don’t think we’d heard any music by his forebears before.

In some ways, it felt more like a lesson than a concert. The programme notes are/were fascinating. A summary note is available on page 9 of the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM’s) season’s brochure – click here – that includes the programme for the evening too. (Also scraped to here in extremis).

In truth, this isn’t the most wonderful music we have ever heard; it is of its (mostly early to mid) baroque period. Unexceptional, other than the fact that it must have been an influence on JS Bach and all that followed.

But the AAM folk did their best to keep the concert lively and engaging. Richard Egarr is an engaging master of ceremonies, Pavlo Beznosiuk always looks as though he is about to wink at the audience and even William Carter smiled a bit during the riper anecdotes of introduction.

I especially like the AAM’s own blog piece – click here, which shows them to be a far more human, fun-loving lot than their somewhat scholastic veneer sometimes infers. However, there is a reference to a “mysterious punter” in the AAM blog piece which could be no-one other than our very own Daisy. Click here or the picture below to find out more.

Can you spot William Carter in this picture? Click through to try and solve the mystery

Here is a link to a search term that gets you most of (what little there is) to find out on line about this concert – including the above links.

 

Baroque In High Definition, Academy of Ancient Music, Wigmore Hall 25 September 2009

The conceit of this tasty concert was to play baroque music that has been used in movies in the last 25 years.

It would have made little difference to us had we remained ignorant of the movie link, but possibly the conceit helped to pull in an audience, not that the Academy of Ancient Music needs much help at the Wigmore Hall on a Friday evening. Perhaps it helped the night before in Cambridge.

Richard Egarr has a very pleasant manner, as do the named soloists for this gig.

This is what we heard:

Just what the doctor ordered after a hard week’s work. Or under any circumstances really.