The Christ Church Baroque Bach Festival, at Christ Church Cathedral last week, was among the most important of several such commemorations in Ireland this year. Over eight days, five all-Bach concerts were given by various combinations of the cathedral choir, vocal and instrumental soloists and this country's only period-instrument orchestra, Christ Church Baroque. As a means of marking the 250th anniversary of the death of J.S. Bach, it was often effective and rewarding. As an extended exposure of Christ Church Baroque, it was significant and thought-provoking.
The five concerts varied in standard. The most effective performances - those which did justice to some of the pinnacles of European music - included some in the Abendmusik programmes which opened and closed the festival on successive Sunday evenings.
In the first, Mark Duley conducted the cathedral choir and an accomplished continuo group in three motets, while Malcolm Proud was in strong form with several organ works.
The next concert in the festival was one to remember. On Tuesday night, Colm Carey played those Contrapunctus movements of Die Kunst der Fuge which are based on the main subject. With little use of the cathedral organ's pedals, and a Glenn Gould-like ability to make individual lines speak, this was a model of technical command, stylistic awareness and musical insight.
The concerts on Thursday and Saturday nights were given by Christ Church Baroque, plus instrumental and vocal soloists. They evoked a mixture of admiration for individual players - members of the orchestra as well as soloists - and frustration. Perhaps the best performance was of Cantata 170, Vergnugte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust, in which the sensitive singing of the mezzo soprano, Alison Browner, inspired a unanimity which was wanting elsewhere.
The performances of the Brandenburg Concertos Nos 3, 4 and 6 tended to substitute combative discourse and hard rhythmic drive for more subtle types of energy. In the concertos for two and three harpsichords, BWV1061 and 1063, the orchestra was poorly co-ordinated with the accomplished and focused playing of the soloists, Malcolm Proud, Gillian Smith and David Adams.
These concerts epitomised the historical performance movement's enduring tension between doctrine and instinct. No amount of knowledge about the hardware of historical performance practice can be a substitute for informed instinct. The common practice of the past is unrecoverable, but workable present-day equivalents can be developed.
For Christ Church Baroque, that will happen only if a core of musicians plays together more regularly, and if they abandon some shibboleths of historical performance. These include the beliefs that giving historical instruments to experienced musicians and directing from the front desk will perforce produce historical results.
As someone who wishes passionately for the success of this important venture, I know this can be done. There are implications for finance, as well as for thought and policy. But these nettles must be grasped if Christ Church Baroque is to take the place it deserves.
All these points were reinforced by the festival's last concert, when choir, orchestra and soloists combined to present Cantatas 106 and 139 plus the sublime motet, O Jesu Christ meins Lebens Licht. Problems included vagrant tuning and speeds which were too fast to let the music breathe. Nevertheless, the focus produced by Mark Duley's conducting, added to the choir's comparative security, offered glimpses of Christ Church Baroque's potential.
