Music review: Dunedin Consort & John Butt, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
Dunedin Consort & John Butt, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh * * * *
In “Geschwinde, ihr wirbelnden Winde” and “Zerreisset, zersprenget, zertrümmert die Gruft” – the first a mean-spirited singing contest between Phoebus and Pan, the other an ironic tale of Aeolus running amok with his power over the weather – we hear Bach with a sense of abandon.
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Hide AdThe latter was the more persuasive, not just for its uncommonly extravagant orchestration – trumpets, horns and timps crowning the wind and strings with resplendent euphoria – but also the compositional grit that gives rugged theatrical edge to otherwise standard cantata numbers, and which the Dunedin singers engagingly characterised.
The opening cantata mostly worked, its fast-flowing sequence of solo numbers amusingly animated by basses Matthew Brook (a self-satisfied Pan) and Dominic Barberi (a lugubrious Phoebus), under John Butt’s ringmaster direction. Fine singing too from Jess Dandy, Nicholas Mulroy and Sophie Junker. But with such a silly plot, and the odd nervous moment, I’m not convinced Bach responded with complete consistency.
Ken Walton