By Andrew Patner, Chicago Sun-Times
December 6, 2010
Chicago’s Music of the Baroque has such dependable ticket buyers and supporters that it is marking its 40th concert season by seeming to do it all. It’s offering a “Messiah” — in the spring, when Handel himself presented it — and Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio” — although a few weeks before Christmas. Even though offering this full Bach work is a rare undertaking, MOB is going ahead with five of its popular Holiday Brass and Choral Concerts this month at architecturally distinctive churches in River Forest, Old Town and Northbrook/Techny.
“It’s our 40th,” the group’s “nothing’s impossible” executive director Karen Fishman said at intermission for the Bach work Sunday at First United Methodist Church in Evanston (the program repeats tonight at the Harris Theater). “We all agreed that we needed to do all of these things — and our Purcell, Haydn, Mozart and Brandenburg programs, too.”
MOB players and singers who are also members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus had to pass because of the CSO’s presentation of Janacek’s “Glagolitic Mass,” although MOB principal bassoon William Buchman sacrificed that opportunity. But fine subs were found, name vocal soloists were in place and a packed sanctuary at First Methodist was there for six cantatas that Bach had presented at six separate services in Leipzig in 1734-35.
It’s not a shock that Handel’s Easter-intended “Messiah” won the Christmastime popularity contest long ago. Bach’s entry wasn’t given a second performance for 120 years; Handel, meanwhile, wrote his work in English and loaded it with theatricality. Bach was the church music man par excellence; each of the six 20-25 minute parts is keyed to a church service.
But this is Bach, and so musical glories are plenty, too. Under music director Jane Glover, the trumpet- and timpani-laden openings and closings of several of the sections exploded as if they’d come from the wild 17th century Venetian Monteverdi. The instrumental Sinfonia that opens the second part, the Annunciation to the Shepherds and the oboes that carry its themes through the section were wonderfully pastoral. And in the final Epiphany cantata, Glover found a dancelike feel in much of the scoring.
Scottish tenor Paul Agnew took up the Evangelist’s narratives and the tenor arias with tenderness. Baritone Sanford Sylvan brought authority to the bass parts. Mezzo Jessica Rivera made a notable MOB debut, while soprano Lisa Saffer sounded a bit constricted. William Jon Gray had prepared his 27-member chorus with care as to both music and text.
With intermission, the program runs nearly three hours. But it’s started the winter music season with substance, style and spirit
