The Well-Tempered Ear
The Madison Bach Musicians host a virtual online Baroque Tour starting this Saturday, April 24, and lasting through May 8
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following notice from Trevor Stephenson, the founder and artistic director of the Madison Bach Musicians (MBM), who will debut their season-closing concert live and online this coming Saturday night, April 24:
Stephenson (below) writes:
Since travel has been so very limited during the pandemic, Madison Bach Musicians is elated to conclude its 2020-21 season with a musical journey through both space and time, and invites you to join us from the intimacy and safety of your own home.
A Baroque Tour is a musical travelogue of instrumental masterworks from 17th- and 18th-century Europe. Luminaries like Handel, Vivaldi, Purcell and Buxtehude are in the mix on this program with their brilliant though lesser-known contemporaries such as Louis-Gabriel Guillemain (below top), Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Andrea Falconieri (below bottom) and Francisco Jose de Castro.
A Baroque Tour will explore the glorious sonic landscapes of Italy, Spain, France, England and Germany.
Our ensemble for this program consists of five strings plus harpsichord, and we are thrilled that baroque bassoon virtuoso Marc Vallon (below, in a photo by James Gill), who teaches at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music, will join us for Vivaldi’s exuberant Bassoon Concerto in B-Flat Major. (You can hear the opening movement in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
A Baroque Tour will be broadcast via live-streaming from the acoustically spectacular sanctuary of Grace Episcopal Church on this Saturday evening, April 24. (Rebroadcasts will be available on demand through May 8.)
Tickets are $15 and available online at: https://madison-bach-musicians.square.site/product/a-baroque-tour-april-24-2021-livestream-on-demand-until-may-8/57?cs=true&cst=custom
If you wish to purchase tickets through the mail, use this downloadable form: https://madisonbachmusicians.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/MBM-2020-21-Live-Stream-Ticket-Form-A-Baroque-Tour.pdf
Here is the schedule for the concert and related events:
From 7:30-8 p.m., in a pre-concert lecture, MBM artistic director Trevor Stephenson will discuss the composers, the repertoire and the historical instruments.
The performance will run from 8 p.m. until approximately 9:15 p.m.
The evening will then conclude with a live Question-and-Answer session with the musicians who will be socially distanced on the concert platform.
Listeners should submit their questions—in advance or during the broadcast—via email to Karen Rebholz at madisonbachmusicians.manager@gmail.com.
THE MUSICIANS are:
Marc Vallon – baroque bassoon soloist
Kangwon Kim (below) – baroque violin
Emily Dupere – baroque violin
Micah Behr – baroque viola and baroque guitar
Martha Vallon – baroque cello and viola da gamba
James Waldo – baroque cello (and tambourine)
Trevor Stephenson – harpsichord
THE PROGRAM is:
HANDEL – Sonata in A major for Violin and Continuo, HWV 361
CHARPENTIER – Concerto for Four Viols, H 545
PURCELL – Trio Sonata in C major, Z 795
VIVALDI – Bassoon Concerto in B-flat major, RV 503
GUILLEMAIN – Sonata in A minor for Two Violins, Op. 5, No.1
BUXTEHUDE – Trio Sonata in G major, BuxWV 271
DE CASTRO – Trio Sonata in C major, Op. 1, No. 6
FALCONIERI – La Folia (Folías de España)
Here is a link to some brief biographies and interesting facts about these remarkable composers: https://madisonbachmusicians.org/april-24-a-baroque-tour-a-livestream-event/
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Classical music: Madison Bach Musicians will hold their sixth annual summer workshops on baroque music online July 28-31. Registration ends July 26
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement to post from the Madison Bach Musicians – who are known for their authentic interpretations with period instruments and historically informed performance practices:
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Here is a preview video on YouTube video:
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Classical music: Trevor Stephenson announces the new season of the Madison Bach Musicians on YouTube. It features smaller concerts and familiar comfort music
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By Jacob Stockinger
At a time when so many concerts are being canceled, it is especially welcome when a local ensemble announces plans for the 2020-21 season.
To announce the 17th season of the Madison Bach Musicians — a period-instrument group that uses historically informed performance practices — the founder and artistic director Trevor Stephenson (below), who also plays the harpsichord, fortepiano and piano, has made and posted a 13-1/2 minute YouTube video.
The season will also be posted on the MBM website in early June, and will also be announced with more details about times and ticket prices via email and postal mailings.
In the video, Stephenson plays the harpsichord. He opens the video with the familiar Aria from the “Goldberg” Variations and closes with two contrasting Gavottes from the English Suite in G minor.
As usual, Stephenson offers insights in the programs that feature some very well-known and appealing works that are sure to attract audiences anxious to once again experience the comfort of hearing familiar music performed live.
One thing Stephenson does not say is that there seems to be fewer ambitious programs and fewer imported guest artists. It’s only a guess, but The Ear suspects that that is because it is less expensive to stage smaller concerts and it also allows for easier cancellation, should that be required by a continuing COVID-19 pandemic.
If the speculation proves true, such an adaptive move is smart and makes great sense artistically, financially and socially given the coronavirus public health crisis.
After all, this past spring the MBM had to cancel a much anticipated, expensive and very ambitious production, with many out-of-town guests artists, of the “Vespers of 1610” by Claudio Monteverdi. Nonetheless, MBM tried to pay as much as it could afford to the musicians, who are unsalaried “gig” workers who usually don’t qualify for unemployment payments.
“Hope and Joy” is a timely, welcome and much-needed theme of the new season.
The new season starts on Saturday night, Oct. 3, at Grace Episcopal Church downtown on the Capitol Square, and then Sunday afternoon, Oct. 4, at Holy Wisdom Monastery in Middleton.
The program is Haydn and Mozart: songs composed in English and German by Haydn plus songs by Mozart; the great violin sonata in E minor by Mozart; and two keyboard trios, one in C major by Haydn and one in G major by Mozart.
Only four players will be required. They include: Stephenson on the fortepiano; concertmaster Kangwon Kim on baroque violin; James Waldo on a Classical-era cello; and soprano Morgan Balfour (below), who won the 2019 Handel Aria Competition in Madison.
On Saturday night, Dec. 12, in the First Congregational United Church of Christ, near Camp Randall Stadium, MBM will perform its 10th annual holiday concert of seasonal music.
The program includes several selections from the “Christmas Oratorio” by Johann Sebastian Bach; a Vivaldi concerto for bassoon with UW-Madison professor Marc Vallon (below, in a photo by James Gill) as soloist; and the popular “Christmas Concerto” by Arcangelo Corelli.
On Saturday night, April 24, at Grace Episcopal Church and Sunday afternoon, April 25, at Holy Wisdom Monastery, the MBM will perform a concert of German Baroque masterworks with the internationally renowned baroque violinist Marc Destrubé (below).
The program features Handel and Bach but also composers who are not often played today but who were well known to and respected by Bach and his contemporaries.
Specifically, there will be a suite by Christoph Graupner (below top) and a work by Carl Heinrich Graun (below bottom).
There will also be a concerto grosso by George Frideric Handel and two very well-known concertos by Bach – the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and the Concerto for Two Violins.
Here is the complete video:
What do you think of the Madison Bach Musicians’ new season?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Madison Bach Musicians cancels its performances in late April of the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610. Here are details about ticket donations and refunds
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following note from founder and artistic director Trevor Stephenson (below top) and associate artistic director Kangwon Kim (below bottom) of the Madison Bach Musicians regarding the cancellation of the April performances of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610.
Dear Friends of Madison Bach Musicians,
We hope everyone is staying well and hanging in there during this global health crisis and massive shutdown. We’re all monitoring the news and looking for any indication that things might improve soon.
Unfortunately, the chances of improvement coming soon enough for public concerts scheduled even near the end of April are overwhelmingly remote.
Madison Bach Musicians (MBM) is very sorry to have to cancel the Vespers of 1610 by Claudio Monteverdi (below) on April 25 and 26. We were all greatly looking forward to it, and of course the piercing irony of having to cancel is that the joy this music brings is what we now, as a culture, need more than ever.
The global economic impact of the coronavirus and COVID-19 pandemic is certainly catastrophic. And, in the music world we are feeling this directly. As a non-profit organization, cancelling a performance is one of the hardest decisions to make ― but the health and well-being of our audience, musicians and staff absolutely come first.
Madison Bach Musicians (below) has offered the Vespers musicians 40 percent of their fee ― we regret we are not a large enough organization to offer full payment.
Several of the players, however, in a show of great generosity, immediately requested that their portion be distributed among the other players. Considering the economic hardship that most freelance musicians will be facing in the coming months, every degree of financial support is deeply appreciated.
MBM is so very grateful to those of you who have purchased tickets to the Vespers. As MBM will feel the economic effects of the Vespers cancellation for a long time, we ask for your support and careful consideration as you decide what to do with your unused Vespers tickets.
If you have purchased tickets, please let us know by April 26, 2020 whether you would like to:
Make your Vespers tickets a tax-deductible donation to MBM. Thank you ― we appreciate it!
A. If you purchased tickets as part of a 2019-20 MBM season subscription or as individual tickets online, please email MBM manager Karen Rebholz at madisonbachmusicians.manager@gmail.com. She will email you your donation tax receipt.
B. If you purchased tickets at one of our outlet locations (Orange Tree Imports or Willy Street Co-op East and West), please mail your tickets to MBM by U.S. mail, provide us with your email address, and we will email you your donation tax receipt.
Request a refund. We’re happy to provide your money back, and look forward to seeing you again in 2020-21 season.
A. If you purchased tickets as part of a 2019-20 MBM season subscription or as individual tickets online, please email MBM manager Karen Rebholz at madisonbachmusicians.manager@gmail.com. MBM will mail you your refund check.
B. If you purchased tickets at one of our outlet locations (Orange Tree Imports or Willy Street Co-op East and West), please mail your tickets to MBM by the U.S. mail, provide us with your street address, and MBM will mail you your refund check.
Our mailing address is: Madison Bach Musicians, 5729 Forsythia Place, Madison WI 53705. If you have questions, please email Karen Rebholz, MBM manager, at madisonbachmusicians.manager@gmail.com or call us at (608) 238-6092
Thank you for your understanding. We look forward to seeing you in the 2020-21 season
Very best wishes―and please stay safe.
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Classical music: Madison Bach Musicians summer workshops in early music are open to the public. A faculty concert is on Wednesday night and a FREE all-participants concert is on Friday at 12:30 p.m.
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REMINDER: Madison Opera’s annual Opera is the Park was cancelled last night because of weather and takes place TONIGHT in Garner Park at 8 p.m. For more information, go to: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2019/07/15/classical-music-madison-operas-annual-free-opera-in-the-park-returns-this-saturday-night-july-20-in-garner-park-and-celebrates-18-years-in-madison-plus-a-glimpse-of-the-upcoming-season/
By Jacob Stockinger
The fifth annual Madison Bach Musicians Summer Chamber Music Workshop (below, a cello class from last year) will be held from Monday, July 23, to Friday, July 26, at the West Middleton Lutheran Church, 3763 Pioneer Road, in Verona, Wisconsin.
The workshop is chaired by MBM assistant artistic director and baroque violinist Kangwon Kim (below), who says: “I’m excited to welcome 32 participants, our largest number ever, working in nine chamber groups this summer to share a week of intense music-making and learning.
” We will explore wonderful repertoire from the baroque and early classical periods, both familiar and rarely performed, while working intensely in an encouraging community that will support musical growth.”
Harpsichordist JungHae Kim (below top) from San Francisco and baroque violist Micah Behr from Madison will join returning faculty members recorder player Lisette Kielson, cellist Martha Vallon (below bottom), dance instructor Karen McShane-Hellenbrand, and MBM founder, artistic director and keyboardist Trevor Stephenson.
Musicians who range in age from 13 to older adulthood will receive personalized ensemble coaching in violin, viola, baroque cello, viola da gamba, piano, fortepiano, harpsichord and recorder. (You can sample the Madison Bach Musicians in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The public is invited to an evening Faculty Concert and various afternoon classes exploring continuo playing, specific instrument master classes, stage presence for musicians, sight-reading, baroque dance, and more.
The Faculty Concert on Wednesday night, July 23, at 7:30 p.m. will feature works by Carl Heinirch Graun (below top), Francesco Turini, Jean-Henri D’Anglebert (below bottom), Georg Philipp Telemann, Joseph Bodin de Boismortier and Henry Purcell on period instruments. Admission is $15 at the door.
The all-participants final concert of the music from the workshops is on Friday, July 26, at 12:30 p.m. It is FREE and open to the public.
An Auditor’s Pass for afternoon programming for the entire festival — including the Faculty Concert — is $40.
For more information, go to: https://madisonbachmusicians.org/summer-workshop/
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Classical music education: The all-student Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO) performs music by Mozart and Aaron Copland this coming Saturday night and Sunday afternoon
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By Jacob Stockinger
This coming weekend, the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO, below in a photo by Steve Rankin) performs “Interplay,” featuring music by Mozart, Copland and Grieg.
There will be two performances.
The first is on Saturday, Aug. 4, at 7:30 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church (below), 203 Wisconsin Avenue, off the Capitol Square.
Then on Sunday, Aug. 5, MAYCO will perform at 12:30 p.m. in Brittingham Gallery 3 at the UW-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art as part of the monthly “Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen” series, which can be STREAMED LIVE by going to: https://www.chazen.wisc.edu/index.php?/events-calendar-demo/event/sunday-afternoon-live-at-the-chazen-8-5-18/
Admission for the Saturday performance is $10 at the door; students by donation. The Sunday performance is FREE, and reservations can be made by going to the above link.
For more information, visit www.mayco.org or www.facebook.com/madisonchamberorchestra.
ABOUT THE ORCHESTRA
MAYCO is a free summer festival ensemble dedicated to providing an intensive small orchestra experience for advanced high school and college musicians.
Founded in 2010 by music director Mikko Rankin Utevsky, the orchestra prepares a full program over the course of each one-week summer session, culminating in a public concert (below is a photo by Dennis Gotowksi of the concert this past June).
For The Ear, Utevsky (below top) and his general manager and concertmaster-wife Thalia Coombs (below bottom) answered some questions about the concerts:
WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE PROGRAM?
The orchestra will be joined by guest soloist Trevor Stephenson (below), who is the artistic director and keyboard player of the Madison Bach Musicians. On fortepiano, he will solo in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat Major, K. 271, sometimes nicknamed the “Jeunehomme” Concerto. (You can hear the lively, tuneful and infectious last movement of the Mozart concerto in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Stephenson has led workshops on historical performance practices with the orchestra in past seasons, and we’re delighted to work with him to bring one of Mozart’s weirdest and wildest youthful masterpieces to life.
The ballet suite from “Appalachian Spring” by Aaron Copland (below) is one of the defining works of his classic American sound, juxtaposing the pastoral beauty of the countryside with his trademark rhythmic vitality. We are performing the original chamber version, in which the clarity of texture illuminates the intricate internal structure of the piece.
Two high school students from our Conducting Apprenticeship Program will lead Grieg’s affecting miniature, “Last Spring,” for string orchestra. Cellist Elizabeth Strauss and violinist Monona Suzuki (below, in 2013) are this year’s Apprentices.
WHY IS THE CONCERT CALLED “INTERPLAY”?
We wanted to highlight the sense of conversation and interaction present in the two major works on this program.
The Mozart concerto is remarkable for the degree of interplay between soloist and orchestra. From the opening bars they are constantly interrupting each other, finishing each other’s sentences. It’s what gives the piece its unique sense of drama.
There’s a truism that Mozart made everything he wrote into an opera, and it’s certainly evident here: the melodies could have been lifted straight out of “The Marriage of Figaro.”
In the Copland work, it’s more about the intricacy of texture and the sense of playfulness in the way the various parts interact.
This project is funded in part by a grant from the Madison Arts Commission, with additional funds from the Wisconsin Arts Board; and by Dane Arts, with additional funds from the Endres Mfg. Company Foundation, The Evjue Foundation, Inc., charitable arm of The Capital Times, the W. Jerome Frautschi Foundation, and the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation.
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Classical Music Q&A: Bach’s Mass in B Minor is perfect music for Easter. It reconciles Catholicism and Protestantism, and is a distillation of Bach’s own Cantatas and Passions, says Trevor Stephenson, the director of the Madison Bach Musicians who, with the Madison Choral Project, will perform the Mass in B Minor on Friday and Saturday nights.
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear still remembers fondly the beautiful and moving performance he heard five years ago of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion” by the Madison Bach Musicians.
Since then the MBM has turned in many memorable performances of cantatas and concertos by Bach and other early music on period instruments, including works by Antonio Vivaldi, Arcangelo Corelli and George Frideric Handel.
But this Easter weekend will bring a special treat.
The Madison Bach Musicians, will partner with the Madison Choral Project, under Albert Pinsonneault, to perform Bach’s magnificent and monumental Mass in Minor.
Performances are at on this Friday night at 8 pm. in the First Congregational United Church of Christ. And on Saturday night at 8 p.m. in the Atrium Auditorium of the First Unitarian Society of Madison at 900 University Bay Drive, near UW Hospital.
Advance tickets are $20 for adults; $15 for students and seniors over 65; at the door, $25 and $20, respectively. For more information about how to buy advance tickets, visit:
http://madisonbachmusicians.org/tickets/
For more information about the music and the performers, visit:
http://madisonbachmusicians.org
Stephenson (seen below, in a pre-concert lecture in a photo by Kent Sweitzer), who is a knowledgeable, articulate and entertaining speaker about Baroque music, agreed to an email Q&A about the Mass in B Minor.
Where do you place the B Minor Mass with Bach’s enormous body of work and choral music? How does it stand or rank in terms of quality and power to, say, the Passions and Cantatas?
Musicians often talk about their “desert island piece”— the work they would most want to have at hand if they were forced to live on a desert island. For me, the B minor Mass has always been my desert island piece. (But if I could sneak in the Well-Tempered Clavier too, that would be great.)
The Passions are incomparable investigations into the relationship between the human embodiment of divine spirit and the dark machinations of this world. The Passions are also Bach’s great statements on the importance of self-sacrifice for the greater good of love. (Jesus gave up his life for love of us, and we should in turn give of ourselves to that which we love.)
The Cantatas are the laboratory where Bach worked out–on a nearly weekly basis–the fusion of musical and textual material toward a spiritual end.
The Mass in B minor focuses more on the relationship between—and really the joining of–the metaphysical and the everyday. Just as an example, as Bach expert John Eliot Gardiner (below) points out in his wonderful new book, “Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven,” look how the opening of the Credo fuses the gravitas, dignity, and mysticism of plainchant (in the voices) with the elegant, bubbling stride of the baroque bass line. And together these elements create a third thing, beyond themselves, a new joy. (At bottom is a YouTube video of the uplifting and joyous “Gloria” movement, performed by Karl Richter leading the Munich Bach Orchestra.)
Why did a devout Lutheran like Bach turn to a Roman Catholic musical form? Is it appropriate to the Easter season, like the Passions and certain cantatas? What kind of liberties does Bach take with it? How does he reinvent it, if he does?
In Bach’s family, the work was often referred to as “The great catholic mass”–precisely because it was not usual Lutheran practice to set the entire Latin mass. The first appearance of the Mass in B minor comes in 1733 when Bach and his family copied out a beautiful set of presentation parts for the Dresden court–which had not only one of the greatest orchestras and vocal ensembles in Europe, but was also a Catholic court.
I’ve always felt that Bach’s Mass in B minor is something of a reconciliation with the Catholic church after the spiritual and political upheaval of the 17th century and the devastation of the 30-years War.
The Mass in B minor, though it is certainly Christian, also points toward a more inclusive picture of humanity’s universal — the original meaning of catholic — spiritual quest. It is hard to quantify, but I feel there is something in this music that speaks to—and really helps and inspires–us all.
Why will Marc Vallon conduct it rather than you?
Marc and I have been working together for several years now. He has played several bassoon concertos with MBM; also with MBM he has conducted symphonies and concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus, Franz Joseph Haydn and Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach.
Marc, who now teaches and performs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, was principal baroque bassoon—for 20 years—with the internationally acclaimed Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra under Ton Koopman. And during that time Marc performed and recorded many of Bach’s Cantatas, Passions and the B minor Mass.
Marc’s tremendous performance background with the Mass, and his infectious enthusiasm for this timeless masterpiece make him perfectly suited to lead the rehearsals and the concerts. I really can’t wait to hear what happens on Friday and Saturday when these amazing musicians and Marc Vallon (below, in a photo by James Gill) and a great audience gather for the Mass in B minor.
What are the special aspects (one-on-one versus larger chorus, for example, or the Madison Choral Project or the period instruments and practices) that you would like to point out about this performance?
The Madison Choral Project is providing a 17-voice choir for the Mass in B minor concerts. In this work, since Bach usually uses a five-part choral texture (soprano I, soprano II, alto, tenor, bass), this comes to about three voices per part, depending on how things are distributed in a particular moment.
In two movements of the Mass (first Credo and Confiteor), we’ll have the soloists sing one-voice-per-part.
The orchestra will consist of 25 players, all on period instruments: 12 strings, 2 baroque oboes, 2 baroque flutes, 2 baroque bassoons, natural horn, 3 baroque trumpets, timpani, and continuo organ, which I what I will play. The balance between choir, soloists and orchestra should work out beautifully. (Below is the Madison Bach Musicians performing the “St. Matthew Passion” in a photo by Karen Holland.)
What should the public listen for in the mass both musically and performance-wise?
I would say notice how Bach contrasts grandeur with intimacy, metaphysical inquiry and prayer with rollicking celebration, and yet makes an exquisitely coherent whole. I think the Mass in B minor is a miracle of form.
Also, these concerts will feature an entirely period-instrument orchestra of outstanding baroque performance specialists hailing from throughout the United States — Madison, Milwaukee, Oshkosh, San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
The wonderful thing about playing this incomparable baroque masterwork on instruments that Bach was familiar with, is that the sound becomes fresh and energized in a way that is readily apparent. It really is a way of going Back to the Present!
The 18th-century instruments typically speak faster than their modern descendants — that is, the pitch actually forms more quickly, often by just a fraction of a second. But in music-making—especially very intricate baroque music-making—that fraction of a second can be the critical difference.
Bach’s absolutely amazing counterpoint in the Mass in B minor, which he often weaves effortlessly in 4 and even 5 independent parts is much more transparent when played on period instruments. You can peer more deeply into the infinite world of Bach’s fugues.
Period instruments are also set up to articulate quite deftly, that is, baroque instruments help the players define the shorter musical groupings of connected and non-connected notes. This in turn assists the audience in assimilating the elegant rhetorical shapes of Bach’s lines.
I will also preface both the concerts starting at 6:45 p.m. with a 30-minute lecture on period instruments (below is Stephenson discussing the keyboard action of an 18th-century fortepiano), approaches to singing baroque music, and the structure and history of the Mass in B minor.
Is there anything else you would like to say or add?
I’d like to say a bit about the two venues where we’ll perform the Mass in B minor. “Where is it?” is one of the first questions most people ask when they hear of an exciting upcoming musical event. Because–particularly for classical music–the acoustics really matter. And the feel of the place, the vibe, needs to be right too.
The sound will be rich and the mood will be spiritually focused on Friday and Saturday as the Madison Bach Musicians and the Madison Choral Project collaborate in two performances of J. S. Bach’s monumental masterpiece the Mass in B minor, BWV 232.
The Friday concert will be given in the magnificent setting of the sanctuary at First Congregational United Church of Christ, at 1609 University Avenue, a landmark building in Madison’s cultural life.
The Saturday concert will be in the acoustically brilliant Atrium Auditorium (below in a photo by Zane Williams) of the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive. The performances will feature a 24-piece period-instrument baroque orchestra, 5 outstanding vocal soloists, and a 17-voice professional choir from the Madison Choral Project.
Bach composed the Mass in B minor during the final 18 years of his life; adding, editing, and re-working it into his final year, 1750. The result is about 100 minutes of music that is instantly engaging, highly varied in its variety of ensemble and style, unified to the Nth degree, and structurally perfect. And somehow the Mass in B minor it is at once both magnificent and intimate.
The First Congregational United Church of Christ, with its neo-Georgian design (begun in 1928), captures the 18th-century ideals of dignified ambiance and sonic balance that Bach understood. The sound has tremendous detail, yet everything contributes to the warm cumulative tonal glow.
The much more recent Atrium Auditorium (below), built in 2008, at First Unitarian Society brings out the immediacy of the music-making. The sight lines are direct, and the acoustics brilliant; the audience feels very connected with the performers.
Both venues are absolutely perfect for period-instrument performance, which emphasizes the detail and vitality of the music rather than sheer decibels.
Seating is limited at both venues, so purchasing tickets in advance is highly recommended.
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