“Heavenly Music: L’Orfeo Baroque Orchestra Performs Bach Program at Ascension Day Festival”

In heaven, God offers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart the direction of his orchestra above the clouds. When asked by the rising Austrian music superstar par excellence what happened to Johann Sebastian Bach, the gentleman replies: “I am Bach.” This winged musician joke with a worthy core lets me introduce the final concert of the Ascension Day Bad Arolser Baroque Festival, which this year the L’Orfeo Baroque Orchestra Linz performed with a pure Bach program on the motto “Heaven and Earth”. And yes, who would be better suited than Bach to illustrate the earthly and supernatural with his work, highly praised by all subsequent generations of composers, to connect the worlds with one another in such a way that one imagines oneself musically on earth in heaven, lyrically the comforting promise of heaven on earth in his attitude?!

In the Ouvertüren-Suite in C at least with the gesture of certainty and serenity that characterizes the evening. She expressed herself at a basic pace that was not irritated, but characterized by great objectivity. It made it possible to clearly shape the smallest note value (suggestion) embellishments and to apply articulatory slur variations, which were therefore all the more necessary to help compensate a bit for the tempo-contrasting less. Michi Gaigg, who led her ensemble from the position of concertmaster, gave the most accentuated smear in accordance with her task, but did not always encounter a similarly gripping takeover from her most trusted fellow players. She even had to capture a rhythmic out-of-step in the overture allegro, which she managed to do as professionally and relatively quickly as she did Gavotte II. In that, the woodwinds made up of oboes and bassoons were actually allowed – rhythmically correct – to turn the tables and set the tone, as for example in the more dance-witty, wald(eck)igen one Bouree II. After a slight, diminutive Minuet had the Bouree Generally, finally, a noticeable momentum that is even more noticeable in the Passepied and was already expressing itself there in aria-like bliss and joy.

They came with soprano Dorothee Mields and traverso soloist Sophia Aretz for and in the Bach cantatas BWV82a and BWV204 referentially to the stage, which in turn is dated Concert BWV1055 were separated from each other in the reconstruction version for oboe d’amore. As mentioned, this instrumental interlude also breathed a spirit of relaxation, with L’Orfeo’s co-leader Carin van Heerden on her instrument, which was sometimes a bit more stubborn in the high register, going out in a kind of mini-blackout in the more phrasing Larghetto this and that. After previous minor technical bumps in the head Allegro, van Heerden, who played with her eyes closed, found herself and her proven ability in the difficult dotted-decorated final movement, in which emphasized hops were articulated just as appealingly as the long strings. But now to Mields and Aretz, who, in addition to the affect mentioned, raised the feelings and messages of pleasure and frugality, the loving longing for and sleepy-wake fearlessness in the face of death to the highest level. Carried by the voices of the L’Orfeo Baroque Orchestra, which were transformed by the accompanist, were soft, balanced, detailed and respectful, as well as knowing the tempo and effects I have enough an enticing bed of maternal warmth, insight and security, into which one was only too willing and able to let oneself fall through contemplative phrasing, organicity, stylistics and filling lyrics.

Not otherwise in the cantata I’m happy inside, in which Mields displayed her professional, comprehensible and comprehensibly precise, exquisitely Bach-tested, identification-becoming, in recitatives also more dramatic form of expression like hardly any other. After, among other things, the fluent, pious aria “Die Schätzbarkeit der weiße Erden” with Julia Huber-Warzecha’s violin-cavantine accompaniment, Aretz and Mields came together again in “Meine Seele sei vergnügt”. So floating and swinging as in the final movement tutti “Heavenly Pleasure”, they threw an airy and cloudy view over themselves in a naturally register-safe, controlled art of transference – into the sky, in which in the very distant future they would inevitably have a place in Bach’s orchestra and team of soloists Mozart will certainly have.

***11