With four vocal soloists, two violin soloists, a guest conductor, a guest concertmaster and a full chorus deployed for just six numbers, it was an odd program, the kind that only a school or a festival could typically afford. Or in this case, two schools and two festivals.
On Monday evening at Alice Tully Hall, the Japanese early-music maestro Masaaki Suzuki conducted an orchestra and chorus made up of students and recent alumni from the Juilliard School and the Royal Academy of Music, London, in two of Bach’s sacred cantatas: No. 11, “Lobet Gott in Seinen Reichen” (“Praise God in His Kingdoms”), and No. 75, “Die Elenden Sollen Essen” (“The Meek Shall Eat”). Mr. Suzuki stepped aside for a performance of Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in D minor (BWV 1043), leaving the coordination to the concertmaster for the evening, the star violinist Rachel Podger, and the two excellent soloists, Davina Clarke and Carrie Krause.
This program had already been performed at the Boston Early Music Festival last Saturday. And it is now on its way to the Leipzig Bach Festival in Germany on Saturday and the Royal Academy of Music on Sunday.
The orchestra and chorus were mostly fine throughout, and Mr. Suzuki, an old hand at Bach, supplied canny direction and pacing. The solos, vocal and instrumental, were more uneven.
Among the vocal soloists, Juilliard was represented by the soprano Mary Feminear and the baritone Elliott Carlton Hines. Ms. Feminear, much admired in the past, was mostly good here, too, although her tone tended toward the operatic at times. Mr. Hines made the most of his big moment, the aria “Mein Herze glaubt” from Cantata No. 75, with the trumpeter Paul Bosworth providing strong obbligato support.
The Royal Academy was represented by the mezzo-soprano Anna Harvey and the tenor Gwilym Bowen. Ms. Harvey was simply wonderful, and her aria in Cantata No. 11, “Ach, bleibe doch” was the evening’s high point. Mr. Bowen sounded a bit pinched at the start but settled into better form.
The solo violinists were well matched, although Ms. Clarke is already a busy professional on the London scene. They added lively, unobtrusive melodic embellishments and, in the absence of a conductor, interacted meaningfully with their orchestral counterparts.
The hard-working oboe soloist, David Dickey, struggled in an early obbligato appearance but found a better groove thereafter.
Perhaps most remarkable, given the difficulties posed by the Baroque version of the instrument, was the playing of the three trumpeters: Mr. Bosworth, Daniel Walton and Sam Jones. They were superb in the closing chorale of Cantata No. 11, which ended the night. Where was an encore when you wanted it?
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