Tage Alter Musik – Almanach 2019

be sorted out – it is unfair on the musicians and uncomfortable for the audience. Just leaving windows open up until the start of the concert would help, as would retaining some element of fresh air movement during the concert. The windows have to be closed because of noise from the lively square out- side and the sound of the cathedral bells who toll enthusiastically at 12 onWhit/Pentecost Sunday. Excessive heat was also an issue during the first of the afternoon concerts, held in the open air inner courtyard of the Thon- Dittmer-Palais. A spectacular space, but with the entire audience and most of the perform- ers exposed to the direct glare of the early af- ternoon sun throughout. Moving this to the 4pm rather than the 2pm slot would have helped, but in the meantime, many of the au- dience sat with their programme books on their heads. The unfortunate performers were the Zefiro Oboe Band with their pro- gramme Von Hof zu Hof and a line-up of 8 oboes (two of them tenor), three bassoons, and percussion. Their programme of music with roots in the Court of Louis XIV by Lully (the processional Marche de Savoye ), André and Pierre Philidor, Foerster, Paisible, and Fischer. Inevitably much of the music was martial in mood, although the two Suites provided some contrasting dance-based movements, including an impressive Cha- conne at the conclusion of Johann Kaspar Ferdinand Fischer’s Suite No 1 in C, Le Jour- nal de Printemps . The central Concerto in C for two oboes by Johann Christoph Foerster gave some relief from the massed winds, even though it would not rank amongst my top favourite compositions, rather overdoing the key of C major and the use of scales. The bustling concluding Presto was nonetheless attractive. The French oboist Jacques Paisible started the first oboe band at the English Court, re- flecting the French practice. His Suite in D from Queen Anne’s Book was an attractive sequence of pieces. The final piece was the jolly Marche du Regiments de la Calotte. The Zefiro Oboe Band’s peaked baseball hats cer- tainly came in useful and led to some coor- dinated cap-doffing at the end. The later afternoon concert (in the galleried St. Oswald Church) was given by the impres- sive Polish orchestra Arte dei Suonatori di- rected from the harpsichord by Marcin Świątkiewicz. Their programme, Bach, Telemann, Goldberg: Musical and human relations , contrasted the three composers linked around Bach. Telemann was godfa- ther to CPE Bach, and Goldberg was Bach’s most talented student, best known for his possibly tenuous link to Bach’s Goldberg Variations, written when Goldberg was 14. There were also links with Poland, Tele- mann’s Concerto Polonois, has strong echoes of Polish folk music, no doubt linked to the years he spent in Żary Castle and Pszczyna. It was given a very sensitive reading by Arte dei Suonatori, particularly in the luxuriant and gently swaying Largo . Although Johann Gotlieb Goldberg died just 6 years after Bach, he was only 29 at the time, having been born 42 years before Bach. It is, therefore, no surprise that his music was very different from that of his teacher, He was born in Gdansk, and was represented in this concert by his D minor Harpsichord Concerto, one of the longest of his time at about 35 minutes. It is an extraordinary tour de force of technical virtuosity and reinforced the reputation that Goldberg had during his short life as an outstanding player. Although elements of the Baroque style of his teacher crop up occasionally, the style otherwise combines elements of the S turm und Drang and Empfindsamer Stil of CPE Bach. The bustling opening leads to a series of ex- tended cadenza-like passages for the solo harpsichord (some with the cello picking out the bass line) and short moments of hiatus, finally dissolving into a slow coda. The lyri- cal Largo was full of lush harmonies, elegiac melodies, and a cadenza with a nicely timed pause before the turbulent final Allegro di molto . Marcin Świątkiewicz played this com- plex piece brilliantly, combining keyboard virtuosity with a lovely sense of rhetoric and sensitive direction of his fellow musicians. They finished with the same Bach Orchestral andrewbensonwilson.org 10 Arte dei Suonatori in der St.-Oswald-Kirche