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December 15--BWV...
...Society, with Linda Quan on violin and Hogwood conducting from his harpsichord, opened the program harmlessly enough with Bach's Sinfonia in F, BWV 1046a...
...finale of the two-hour concert was the Society's rendition of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, BWV 1049, which led straight into the Quartet's own arrangement of Elemental Bach, a bluesy piece that jump-started the audience from their slumber...
After the intermission, Kent played Bach's Prelude and Figue in A Major (BWV 536). With so many masterpieces of the form to choose from, it is unfortunate that Kent should have come up with such an uninspiring example. The A Major does posses the architectural perfection of Bach's composition, but the long strings of 7-6 suspensions, obvious pedal points, and exposed pedal solos do not produce anything striking. Even the fugue theme was dull. Through it all, Kent's playing was beautifully clear and devold of irritating mannerisms. His style is a convincing blend of new scholarship...
Never does he seem more so than at Christmas. A devout Lutheran who spent much of his life in the service of the church, Bach wrote more than 1,000 works, according to the definitive Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV) catalogue. Nearly three-quarters of these were intended to be performed at Christian worship-including a Magnificat and 41 Christmas cantatas (plus six more that make up the famed Christmas oratorio). Even in the secularist atmosphere of the 20th century, his music rings with what Toronto Choral Conductor Elmer Iseler calls a positive, "D-major feeling about life." From the evidence...