Brandenburg

A music-rich weekend had started with a fine Friday night classical programme, Mozart and Salieri, and was followed with a feast of the best baroque in Brandenburg on Saturday night. Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos were so named because they were found in the Brandenburg archives 99 years after Bach’s death. Like Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat Major in Friday’s concert, they were not performed during the composer’s lifetime but are widely considered to be some of the best orchestral works of the Baroque period.

The soloists Bridget Douglas (flute), Yuka Eguchi (director/violin), and Rachael Griffiths-Hughes (harpsichord) were accompanied by a small chamber orchestra for Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. The acoustics in the Wellington Cathedral of St Paul are quite different from the Michael Fowler Centre. The high ceiling and stone structure added a short echo, well suited to the balance and tone and the Baroque sound. The first movement includes a long and spectacular harpsichord cadenza, exceptionally well played by Griffiths-Hughes.

Brandenburg No. 5 is the first concerto written with a solo keyboard part and the next piece, Telemann’s Concerto for Viola in G Major, is the first viola concerto to be written. I have a soft spot for the little-known and often-overlooked viola. Soloist Alexander McFarlane played with skill and feeling and a really lovely tone from the first slow movement to the fourth and final fast movement.

Handel’s Concerto Grosso in G Major No. 1 was introduced by principal second violin Andrew Thomson, who also explained the difference between a Baroque and modern bow – it’s all to do with the hair! Handel explored a variety of styles and techniques in the five movements making up the concerto and the strings sounded magnificent in the church acoustics.

To conclude, Telemann’s Overture Suite in G Minor, La Changeante, was a series of eight playful postcards depicting a wide variety of styles and form from a musical holiday in France.