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Bach in the City — 'Music in Heaven's Castle'
Bach in the City, Chicago’s newest Baroque period-instrument organization, will launch its debut concert season with “Music in Heaven’s Castle.”
“With a title inspired by the breathtaking features of the Himmelsburg (Heaven's Castle) chapel in Bach’s Weimar, Germany, and our home, St. Vincent de Paul Church, this program features both beloved and rarely heard gems by three giants of the Baroque period,” says Jason J. Moy, Bach in the City’s associate music director and the program’s curator.
The program offers works by Bach, his close friend and musical colleague Georg Philipp Telemann, and French-born German composer Georg Muffat, an older contemporary of Bach.
Festive overture
Telemann’s Overture Suite in D Major, TWV 55:D7, for trumpet, strings, and harpsichord will open the first concert of Bach in the City’s debut season in a bright, festive, and celebratory spirit.
Soloist is Ryan Berndt, on natural trumpet.
‘Exuberant’ triple-harpsichord concerto
The inclusion of J.S. Bach’s crowd-pleasing Concerto in C Major for 3 Harpsichords, BWV 1064, with its intricate interplay among the keyboard soloists, pays homage to Bach in the City’s predecessor, the Bach Week Festival, Moy says.
Bach Week’s inaugural program in 1974 included Bach’s concerto for four harpsichords. Moy says the logistical difficulties and expense of moving and tuning multiple harpsichords make multi-harpsichord concertos a rare treat.
Of the Concerto BWV 1064, Moy says, “An introspective slow movement in the key of A minor provides a musical foil to the exuberantly joyful opening and closing Allegros.”
Harpsichordists are Moy, Jacob Reed, and Richard Webster.
Rarely heard cantata
One of the first works Bach presented at Himmelsburg was his Cantata No. 54, ‘Widerstehe doch der Sünde’ (Do resist sin), comprising two arias and a recitative for alto soloist. It’s considered one of Bach’s earliest cantatas for solo voice.
“Bach intended to make a splash through the dissonant chords, representing sin, that open the piece,” Moy says. “Its shocking dissonances and chromatic harmonies expressing the temptations of sin would have astonished its original audience.”
Moy calls it “one of Bach’s most striking and innovative cantatas.”
Soloist in this rarely heard work is countertenor Marco T. Rivera Rosa.
Cornerstone concerto for violin
A cornerstone of the violin repertoire, Bach’s Violin Concerto in A Minor, BWV 1041, weds the virtuosic flair of an Italian concerto with complex German Baroque counterpoint. It boasts a fiery opening movement, a contemplative inner movement, and an exuberant finale.
Violin soloist is Emily Nebel.
Lush string sonata
Muffat’s Sonata No. 5 from “Armonico Tributo” blends French elegance, Italian showmanship, and German counterpoint. It employs a lush-sounding, five-part string orchestra, an instrumental configuration favored by his contemporary, French Baroque composer Jean-Baptiste Lully, whom Muffat greatly admired.
In addition to the aforementioned soloists, musicians performing in “Music in Heaven’s Castle” include violinists Sallynee Amawat, Amelia Sie, and Rachel Smith; violists Melissa Trier Kirk and Beatrice Chen; cellist Ana Kim; and double-bassist Ian Hallas.
Event Links
Tickets: https://go.evvnt.com/3254403-0
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/3254403-2
