Chicago|Local Event
Bach in the City's 'Fantasticus: Bach and Before'
Bach in the City’s season opens with “Fantasticus: Bach and Before,” a chamber concert devoted to works composed in the free-wheeling, improvisational “Stylus Fantasticus” Baroque style that predated J. S. Bach. The program includes music by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Rosenmüller, Johann Christoph Bach, Johann Pachelbel, and J. S. Bach himself, the “youngest” composer in the group.
Bach in the City’s co-music director Jason Moy has mapped out a “Fantasticus” voyage.
In a program note, Moy cites 17th-century music theorist Athanasius Kircher’s description of Stylus Fantasticus as “the most free and unrestrained method of composing … instituted to display genius and to teach the hidden design of harmony and the ingenious composition of harmonic phrases and fugues.”
Moy invites listeners to savor this middle-Baroque period style “through the imaginative and virtuosic works” of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Rosenmüller, Johann Christoph Bach, Johann Pachelbel, and Johann Sebastian Bach.
A highlight will be a rare performance of Pachelbel’s ubiquitous, widely beloved Canon in D Major in its original version for just three violins and continuo (Baroque rhythm section), along with Pachelbel’s oft-neglected Gigue in D Major, a playful, energetic dance piece with which the Canon was originally paired by the composer.
“Some have referred to the Gigue as the ‘B-side’ of the pairing,” Moy says. “But the B-side of a recording sometimes turns out to be the hit song.”
Biber wrote some of the most notoriously difficult, complex violin music of the Baroque era. The concert includes Biber’s Sonata violino solo representativa and Sonata à 6 in C Major, in which the trumpet also gets opportunities to shine.
Violin and viola da gamba are prominent in Buxtehude’s austere, elegant Sonata in A Minor, BuxWV 272, which illustrates the composer’s masterful use of “basso ostinato,” a repeating bass line.
Rosenmüller’s Sonata Decima à 5 in F Major blends strict German Baroque counterpoint with the lyrical, theatrical virtuosity of the Italian Renaissance operas the composer heard during his sojourn in Venice.
Johann Christoph Bach’s masterwork, his deeply moving Lament “Ach, dass ich Wassers gnug hätte” (Oh, if only I had enough tears) for alto soloist, is a profound expression of repentance. He was the older cousin of J. S. Bach, who referred to him as “the profound composer.”
The program, directed by Moy, closes with J. S. Bach’s uplifting sacred cantata “Jauchzet Gott in Allen Landen” (Exult in God in all lands), BWV 51, featuring soprano and trumpet solos.
Soloists are soprano Hannah De Priest, countertenor Ryan Belongie, violinist Amelia Sie, and trumpeter Ryan Berndt.
This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council.
Tickets and information
Single tickets are $45 for VIP admission, which includes reserved seating; $30 adult general admission; $25 seniors 65 and older; $10 students.
Tickets and information are available at bachinthecity.org and by phone, 312-273-9834.