Success or Excess? The Boston Early Music Festival 2011, by Larry Wallach


Johann Christoph Bach (`642 – 1703)

1. Frances Fitch - French claveçin music (Clérambault, Le Roux, Rameau, Jacquet de la Guerre)

2. David Hyun-su Kim - Beethoven and Schumann on the Fortepiano (Goethe House)

3. Boston Camerata (Anne Azéma, Joel Cohen) - Roman de Fauvel

4. William Porter - Leipzig Chorale Preludes

5. Jordi Savall - Irish Music

6. BEMF Orchestra (Robert Mealy) - Bach, Corelli, Handel

7. Keyboard Festival: Harpsichord Concerts

a. Peter Sykes
b. Luca Guglielmi

8. Keyboard Festival: Fortepiano concerts

a. Christoph Hammer - Beck, Clementi
b. Kristian Bezuidenhout - Mozart Sonatas

9. Michael Sponsellor, et al. - J. Chr. Bach: “Meine Freundin, du bist schön”
10. Kristian Bezuidenhout et al. - Mozart: Fantasy, Piano Quartets

Part I

The number, variety, and quality range of the BEMF musical events is so vast that it induces a kind of giddiness or vertigo over the course of the week that can be taken as either the frenzy of enthusiasm or the disorientation of overload. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Going to concerts is always a social event, and attending a series of them along with numbers of articulate, knowledgeable people (including the total stranger who might be wearing an “Earlier than Thou” T-shirt) with whom you can share information and compare responses is stimulating—at the very worst—at best highly enlightening.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International journal for the Arts!







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