San Francisco Classical Voice

Friday evening the Bach Aria Group, now midway through its sixth decade, brought one of its unique Bach appreciation programs to Stanford University's Dinkelspiel Auditorium. The nine-member vocal and instrumental ensemble, presented by the Lively Arts at Stanford, performed 13 cantata arias/duets, one cantata chorus, and one trio sonata.

BAG concerts are fascinating, because we rarely get to hear some of the music this ensemble presents, much of it beautiful, moving, and exhilarating. Thus it's all the more regrettable when some of the selections programmed prove, quite unnecessarily, that even Bach had his dog days.

The five instrumentalists lined up or huddled on one side of the stage and played their modern instruments alone or together as needed. The singers collected on the other side. The instrumentalists were consistently impressive in their demanding parts, often at least as musically important as the vocal lines. Flutist Tara O'Connor had a firm and beautiful tone and demonstrated technical virtuosity in the accompaniments of several arias, beginning with Cantata 113, "Herr Jesu Christ." She excelled, along with violinist Daniel Phillips, cellist Timothy Eddy, and harpsichordist Yehudi Wyner, in the Trio Sonata in C Minor for Flute, Violin, Cello, and Continuo, the brilliant second movement of which was one of the highlights of the concert.

Oboist Peggy Pearson had a full, fluid tone and rolling technique from the opening of the first selection, the "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring" theme from Cantata 147, "Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben." Then she trumpeted out the main theme of the Brandenburg-like bass and tenor duet from Cantata 146, "Wir muessen durch viel Truebsal." Eddy and Wyner provided a sound foundation for the arias and occasionally contributed fine solo passages as well.

The singing was less consistent. Mezzo-soprano D'Anna Fortunato had a warm sound and easy style in the alto aria from Cantata 30, "Freue dich, erloeste Schar," a religious version of the secular Cantata 30a. She and soprano Kendra Colton, who regularly had a smooth, precise, and appealing tone and style, glistened in the glorious duet from the Cantata 78, "Jesu, der du meine Selle" and elsewhere. Tenor David Britton had a light voice and bass John Stephens a too-often mushy one. Their performances ranged from enjoyable to less so, the latter particularly bothered at times by intonation.

With so many cantatas selections to choose from, why did BAG ever pick the tedious tenor aria from Cantata 97, "In allen meinen Taten"? The performance of this one was as blah as the aria itself.

Although the Lively Arts provided excellent program notes for Murray Perahia's all-Bach program last week, I regretted there were aria texts but no other notes for this equally complex program.

(William Ratliff, a Senior Research Fellow at Stanford University, is a former music critic of The Peninsula Times Tribune and stringer for The Los Angeles Times and Opera News.)

©2000 William Ratliff, all rights reserved