St. Andrew’s Bach Society, the venerable summertime concert series, is returning to its roots Sunday for an all-Bach program that’s worth abandoning your air-conditioned abode for the afternoon.
Don’t take our word for it. Here are five reasons you shouldn’t miss this one:
1. The musicians: A trio of Tucson Symphony Orchestra top dogs — concertmaster Lauren Roth, associate principal cellist Ian Jones and principal horn Johanna Lundy — joined by widely-traveled harpsichordist Guy Whatley, who lives in Phoenix but is fast becoming a favorite adopted son of Tucson.
2. The music: The program is stacked with cornerstones of Bach's intimate, unaccompanied solo works, a repertoire that showcases the musicians' technical skills and interpretive intuition.
3. Hello, it's Bach: In a purely intellectual exercise, New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini ranked Bach No. 1 on his list of all-time greatest composers in 2011. The list rankled a few feathers in the music world, although most generally agree that Bach belongs at No. 1 or No. 2 with Beethoven and Mozart. During what some call music's "stuffy wig era," Bach wrote music that reached beyond the Lutheran church where he was employed and for whom he wrote much of his music to the average listener's soul. He composed music with deep artistic beauty and expression that made audiences then — and now — hold their breath waiting to see where he would take it next.
4. Call it a primer: Later this season, St. Andrew's Bach Society is going to spring on us something we rarely get to experience: An afternoon of Bach's famed Brandenburg Concertos. The Aug. 30 Brandenburg Festival will include No. 1, 2, 4 and 5 performed by a chamber-sized orchestra of TSO veterans. (Bach Society Director Ben Nisbet, a violinist with the TSO, is among them.)
5. Can't beat the price: Talk about your bargains: $12 gets you in to see some of Tucson's finest musicians in an intimate setting. We could compare that to the price of seeing a movie, but there's no comparison really to seeing music performed live.
