With the approach of Easter, Bath's Bach festival took an enterprising departure from the traditional performances of the two Passions and the Mass in B minor. The weekend-long celebration was devoted to lesser-known music by the great master, and Bath Abbey was full to overflowing for this programme of sacred choral works with a paschal theme.
The Cantata No 31, Der Himmel Lacht!, written for Easter Sunday, reflects the unusually lavish set-up Bach had at his disposal at the court of Weimar, re-created here by the period instruments of the Steinitz Bach Players. Strings, oboes, trumpets and timpani proclaimed the resurrection with a glowing sound. Then, with the entry of the five-part chorus, Bach's word-painting suggests heaven's laughter and earth's jubilation with vocal and instrumental lines rippling with mirth - a play on words that was doubtless appreciated in Weimar, where the court chapel rejoiced in the name of Himmelburg, "Heaven's castle". After such vivid textural detail, the dark colouring of the short Lutheran Mass in G minor, where even the Gloria is cast in the minor mode, seemed all the more poignant, although lacking somewhat in rhythmic definition.
The real gem of this concert was the Cantata No 21, Ich Hatte Viel Bekümmernis in Meinem Herzen, whose subject is the suffering that offers a means to eternal joy. At the heart of this work is an ecstatically beautiful duet in which Bach sets a dialogue between the soul and Christ, the words of the soul doubting and pleading, and Christ's responses proffered as sweet balm. In this, soprano Emma Kirkby and bass Jonathan Gunthorpe were eloquently expressive. While neither the solo arias of tenor Joseph Cornwell nor countertenor Simon Barker had the same finesse, the four voices together made for a well-matched quartet against the full chorus.
Under the direction of Elizabeth Bates, the Chantry Singers produced a prettily refined sound, clear and fresh. In the final chorus in particular - a setting of Worthy is the Lamb that is lighter and more graceful than that in Handel's Messiah - they did ample justice to one of Bach's very finest works.
