An exciting blaze of trumpets and drums announced the London debut of the Oxford Bach Soloists (OBS) and immediately raised the question: why is this thrilling ensemble not more widely known? In its quest to perform all of JS Bach’s vocal music over 12 years it has already presented 129 of the 200-plus sacred and secular cantatas. That’s 93 hours of live music, yet few enthusiasts outside Oxford know of its existence. That’s surely about to change.
Nine years remain for OBS to complete the vast canon, mounting a cycle of performances in chronological order, with performers, instruments and venues that echo the university and churches of Bach’s Leipzig. It’s the brainchild of the ambitious and energetic conductor Tom Hammond-Davies. Scholars contend that Bach didn’t write for a choir in a conventional sense, but for an ensemble of soloists who would join together to sing the choral passages. Every year, Hammond-Davies selects for scholarships 10 young singers who generally step out of the choir to sing the solos. But for the larger works, such as this performance of parts one, three and six of the Christmas Oratorio, he brings in some big names to swell the chorus and sing the arias.
Bach makes no concessions for singers, treating the voice as an instrument like any other, so that each piece is conceived as a whole, not mere accompanied singing. Hammond-Davies understands this instinctively, achieving an immediate, enthralling unity and cohesiveness, right from the first bars of the opening shout of praise, Jauchzet, frohlocket! (Rejoice, Exult!), which swung with an easy three in the bar and set a template of joyous precision for the rest of the evening.
There were too many memorable moments to list here but, at random, in the lilting Er ist auf Erden kommen arm (He Came to Earth in Poverty), oboists Frances Norbury and Mark Baigent wove a scintillating pattern around the bass Florian Störtz’s warm solo line, sung against a soft arioso, beautifully articulated by the sopranos. In an instant, Störtz switched to hard-edged drama in his aria Grosser Herr, o starker König (Great Lord, Oh Strong King), with the trumpeter Stephen Cutting adding a silver shower of glittering brilliance. The violin of leader Davina Clarke made an elegant partner to the counter-tenor William Purefoy’s tender reading of Schliesse, mein Herze, dies selige Wunder (Enclose, My Heart, This Blessed Miracle), while Störtz’s sneering depiction of Herod was vehemently condemned by the soprano Hilary Cronin in her recitative Du Falscher (You False One), and reinforced in her sinuous aria Nur ein Wink von seinen Händen (Just a Wave of His Hands).
Throughout, Nick Pritchard made his now customary fluent and sympathetic contribution as the Evangelist; he surely is one of the best young tenors singing today. And with soloists and scholars combined, the choral singing reached perfection in Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier (I Stand Here at Your Manger), sung pianissimo with just Rosie Moon’s stealthy double bass for company.
This virile, collegiate approach to Bach is the most exciting I’ve heard in a very long time. If you can’t get to hear OBS live, recordings will soon be available. Snap them up.
The British violinist Chloë Hanslip was only 14 when she made her 2002 Wigmore Hall debut, playing Ravel’s demanding Sonata No 2 in G. She returned to the hall last week with the same piece, and this time with the pianist Danny Driver. They negotiated the unsettling ambiguities of the first movement with graceful ease, Hanslip making the most of the cantabile moments, her tone effortlessly strong and sweet. All change for the central movement, though, which is a smoky blues. Ravel wrote this sonata in the 1920s after a trip to the US made him see the possibilities of jazz, but despite all the sliding around the fingerboard and sexy chords in the piano part, he imposed such a tight structure that the players have little room to really swing. They are, however, given a virtuosic close in the perpetual motion of the last movement, excitingly realised here.
Hanslip and Driver had opened with a spirited reading of Stravinsky’s ornately rhythmic Divertimento for violin and piano from 1934, drawn from his music for the ballet The Fairy’s Kiss, followed by Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel (Mirror in the Mirror), offered as a palate-cleanser before the rigours of the Ravel sonata. I confess I have never been a fan of this piece, finding its repetitious piano arpeggios deeply irritating, but this perfectly judged performance won me round, its calming beauty revealed in all its simple glory.
Star ratings (out of five)
Oxford Bach Soloists ★★★★★
Hanslip/Driver ★★★★
