Bath BachFest Review – Upbeat and uplifting music making | classical music

TTaking on the role of the late Amelia Freedman as Artistic Director of Bath Baqfest is no small task for Adrian Brindle, but his determination to breathe new life into the three-day festival is evident, not least in creating a Baqfest band that unites hugely talented players in the early stages of their outstanding careers.

The energy and commitment of the young players was palpable, and in a concert of Handel, Purcell, Bach and Vivaldi, and their collaboration with an older group – Brendel himself anchoring the ensemble as cellist, along with oboist Nicholas Daniel and American countertenor Reginald Mobley – there was a very real sense of their joy in performing together and the audience’s joy in being part of the equation.

In Handel’s Violin Sonata in D major, the soloist was Stephen Wartz, the purity of his voice and the formation of the long phrases immaculately achieved. Purcell’s songs, particularly O Solitude, showed Mobley’s interest in the primacy of words – his voice is more flute than clarinet – but in Bach’s “Ich Habe Genug” his natural expression, combined with Daniel’s beautiful, heart-rending flute, was most moving. Daniel’s performance of Handel’s recently discovered Sole Oboe Concerto in C Minor, in which elegant lyricism meets sparkling virtuosity, was simply stunning, and his performance of Mobley’s exuberant Fami Combattere from Handel’s Orlando brought a final flourish.

In a lunchtime concert, the young Finnish-Cuban pianist Anton Mejias’s playing of a series of preludes and fugues, mostly from Book II of the Well-Mooded Key, highlighted the fertile, feverish nature of Bach’s musical mind. Yet even its complex brilliance paled in comparison to the extraordinary creativity of his Goldberg Variations. The inspiring programming of Dmitry Sitkovetsky’s arrangement of the Variations for String Trio – created to celebrate the trecentenary of Bach’s birth in 1985 and arguably the most satisfying of the various concert versions of the original harpsichord – provided the perfect finale for the day. I found that the indefatigable Brindle was now partnered with the band members, violinist Tim Crawford and violinist Noga Shaham, and the intensity of the playing – the serenity, the pain, the vitality, the quiet, incantatory return of the song at the end – was mesmerising. The original title page for Goldberg’s score notes that Bach intended it to “delight the souls of music lovers.” This performance certainly did that.

The next BachFest will take place from 25 to 27 February 2027.