Bach: Christ lag in Todesbanden BWV 4
Bach: Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland BWV 61
Purcell: Dido & Aeneas

Mayfield Festival Choir conducted by Jeremy Summerly with Mayfield Baroque Orchestra and soloists Eloise Irving (Soprano), Helena Moore (Soprano), Richard Pinkstone (Tenor), Grace Stephens-Spada (Treble), Annenora Benians (Treble) and Rupert Jeffcoat (organ)

Bach was the finest German musician of his generation, and Purcell the finest English musician of his. And they both started young.

Yet Bach and Purcell show vastly different sides of the Baroque character. Bach’s passion was to glorify God through every note that he wrote – his hundreds of cantatas are testament to that – whereas Purcell’s passion was the theatre.

Bach’s Germany was the crucible in which Lutheran church music flourished, and the ever-popular Easter Cantata (‘Christ lag in Todesbanden’) was written when Bach had just turned 22 – what a remarkably inventive work for one so young! Bach’s only cantata for the First Sunday in Advent (‘Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland’) was written just before Bach turned 30, when he had just had his first child and when his early maturity was evident.

Purcell was also in his twenties when he wrote Dido & Aeneas for the English court. Whether it was for Charles II or his younger brother James II we may never know, but Dido radiates high emotion and knock-about comedy in equal measure.

Mayfield Festival Choir and young soloists are joined again by Mayfield Baroque, some of the London early-music scene’s most exciting professional string players, for an evening of high-quality music and drama from the pens of the young and vibrant Bach and Purcell.

Jeremy Summerly was Director of Music at St Peter’s College, Oxford from 2015 til this March and was elected a Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music in 2017. He is Visiting Professor of Music at Gresham College. As well as a conductor and lecturer he is a writer/presenter for BBC Radio and a freelance editor of medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque music. He has been musical director of Mayfield Festival Choir since 2012.

Mayfield Baroque is an instrumental collective of young professional players of period instruments, all of whom are based in and around London and Oxford. The group was formed in 2016 specifically to work with Mayfield Festival Choir and the choir of St Peter’s College, Oxford. Described as ‘breathtaking’, ‘scintillating’, and ‘totally beguiling’, Mayfield Baroque brings the music of the 17th and 18th centuries to life and leaves audiences spellbound.

Review

For their second concert of 2019, Mayfield Festival Choir chose works by two composers at the beginning of their careers – namely Bach and Purcell.

The two Bach cantatas – ‘Now come, Saviour of the heathens’ and ‘Christ lay in death’s bonds’ – written while Bach was still in his twenties, demonstrated how much the choir has progressed in recent years, with a full and fluent sound in all departments, especially the sopranos. The solo responses were in the capable hands of four fine singers, who were mostly making welcome returns to Mayfield – Eloise Irving, soprano, Helena Moore, soprano, Richard Pinkstone, tenor, and Angus McPhee, bass. All handled their various contributions with style and innate musicality.

The second part of the evening was given over to a complete performance of Purcell’s ‘Dido and Aeneas’ also composed in Purcell’s early twenties. This allowed the choir to engage in the many, short but beautiful responses with the soloists. Also involved in this work were two fabulous young trebles – Grace Stephens-Spada and Annenora Benians, both of whom sang their smaller, but equally important roles with delightful accomplishment. The evening was brought to a close with a moving rendition of the work’s most notable aria, ‘Thy hand, Belinda’, sung with sheer delicacy by the soprano Eloise Irving.

Accompanying the evening were the young, recently formed Mayfield Baroque, a stylish ensemble guided throughout by the excellent baton of the evening’s conductor and musical director, Jeremy Summerly.

Another joyful evening in Mayfield.

James Anderson