Ionarts: Critic’s Notebook: Concentus Musicus and the Arnold Schoenberg Choir in Seasonal Bach

Also published in Die Presse: Feiern mit dem Concentus: Bach im Musikverein

J.S.Bach
Christmas Oratorio
N.Harnoncourt, Concentus, ASC
(DHM, 2007)

US | UK | DE

J.S.Bach
Christmas Oratorio
J.v.Veldhoven, Nederlandse Bachvereniging
(Challenge, 2003gg)

US | UK | DE

Bach and a Message for Contemplation

Stefan Gottfried is not Nikolaus Harnoncourt, but that's OK

In the winter of 2006/2007, Nikolaus Harnoncourt led and recorded the Christmas Oratorio in the Golden Hall with Concentus Musicus, the Arnold Schoenberg Choir, and an incomparable line-up of singers (Christine Schäfer, Bernarda Fink, Werner Güra, Christian Gerhaher, Gerald Finley).

On Saturday evening, in that very same hall, Stefan Gottfried conducted the same forces in the first two of the six cantatas that make up the oratorio. Had Werner Güra not fallen ill, one of those original soloists would even have been back.

Anyone who’s carried either the recording or the memory of it in their inner ear and compared the two would not have failed to notice that the twenty-year-old interpretation sounded fresher, brisker, more spontaneous: colourful, warm, heartfelt, yet crisp.

It would have been a pity to let such an—admittedly unfair—comparison keep one from appreciating the beautiful things offered here. Must everything always be a chase for superlatives, for “events”, for the sensational? Must every concert be earth-shattering? Must we, just because a performance may not eclipse everything previously heard, immediately grumble and go excavating for tiny blemishes to justify our disappointment? “Aha! The continuo organ wasn’t always in rhythm. There—those trumpets squeaked. An oboe was flat. Or the stand-in evangelist sounded heraldic rather than urgent or particularly text-attuned. And the soprano’s mordents and trills were more of a wobbled vibrato.” Can’t something simply be good?

Yes. It can, and it should. Especially in this reflective season, when one might consider not letting the best become the enemy of the good. Why not, then, delight in the Arnold Schoenberg Choir, in sensational shape, singing their choruses and chorales with precision, point, and an impressive dynamic span: “Break forth, O beauteous heavenly light!” — what a radiant line, that alone. Or take Olivia Vermeulen’s tenderly delivered “Schlafe, mein Liebster”. Or, in the Advent cantata of the first half, “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland”: the delicately sustained recitative “Siehe, ich stehe vor der Tür”, sung by bass Manuel Walser. Or again the choir, in the instructive chorale “Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele, und vergiss all Not und Qual” from Wachet! Betet! Betet! Wachet!

And then there was the Concentus itself, playing with commitment and good spirit — even if the exuberant timpanist, alternately whispering and metaphorically (and literally) hitting the big drum, almost stole the show in the first cantata, which proclaims to us the joyful news of Christ’s birth. In short: It was beautiful.