CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEW

Some hits and near misses in Bach

LENOX -- Bach never wrote a cantata named "Praise God for Mixed Blessings," but if he had, it would have fitted the Berkshire Bach Society's season finale.

Under the rubric "Bach Sings of Heavenly Love," the Bach Singers and Instrumental Ensemble performed two cantatas and two organ concertos -- or at any rate two assemblages presented as organ concertos. In terms of performance, one of each hit the mark. The others only came close.

For the well-attended Saturday night program in Seiji Ozawa Hall, the society brought back three of its most reliable guest artists, conductor Penna Rose, mezzo-soprano Emily Eyre and organist Joan Lippincott.

As is the society's custom, the 10-member instrumental group consisted of professionals, while the chorus, about 50 strong, was made up of well-trained amateurs. Rose, the society's former music director, switched to the harpsichord in the concertos, leaving direction of the performances to the excellent concertmaster Deborah Wong.

Lippincott cobbled together the two organ concertos, both in D minor, from Bach cantata movements containing obbligato organ parts.

Bach provided precedent for the tinkering. He regularly recycled his own choral music, including the movements used here, in concertos. The recycling process also went in the opposite direction. Indeed, the second of Lippincott's samplers was instantly recognizable as the D minor harpsichord concerto.

The concertos opened and closed the program, but there was a world of difference between them. In both, Lippincott played a small portable organ. In the first, it seemed insufficient for the task -- thin and unvaried in tone and effect.

Amid the chug-chug rhythms of the instrumental ensemble, organ notes fell on the ear like a rain of needles.

The sequel, however, blazed into life. The organ part achieved a wider range of colors, and Lippincott, a colleague of Rose's at Princeton University, switched into virtuoso mode. The showy third-movement cadenza turned into a starburst of notes, requiring a repeat of the movement as an encore for the exuberant audience.

In the cantata "Gott soll allein mein Herze haben" ("God alone shall have my heart"), Eyre used her luminous mezzo voice with care and intelligence, molding the music to the text.

The long opening aria suffered from a certain sameness of effect, but Eyre hit her stride in the other aria, "Stirb in mir" ("Die in me"), one of Bach's greatest hits.

Drawing on her rich low register, and underpinned by sighing strings, she brought a sense of rapture to the surrender to God's love.

The chorus got its big chance in the familiar cantata "Jesu meine Freude" ("Jesus, my joy"), which dispenses with soloists in favor of straightforward choral narration.

The singing was accurate and sometimes expressive, achieving delicacy in the gentle, flowing section "Gute Nacht, o Wesen" ("Good night, O being"). But accuracy was often achieved at the expense of spontaneity.

A feeling of tentativeness kept creeping in, and some of the counterpoint was blurred.

A smaller, elite chorus might have provided Rose with more flexibility; she is usually a more vibrant conductor than she was here.

But then, part of the glory of a group like Berkshire Bach is the opportunity it provides for amateur singers to experience the music of a master from within. That's an unalloyed blessing.

June 10, 2002