CLASSICAL: Bach and Pergolesi in the Moors

A new discovery, thanks to my sister and brother-in-law: Classic in the Moors (Klassiek in 't Veen), ten classical concerts a year in a Concert farm in Drenthe provence. High quality programming in a rural sorrounding. High quality it certainly was on Good Friday evening: a Partita and Toccata of Bach, performed by Ivo Janssen, and Pergolesi's beautiful Stabat Mater, sung by Selma Harkink (soprano) and Marion van den Akker (altus), accompanied on organ.

Ivo Janssen played on a Steinway concert piano, not on a harpsichord Bach has written his keyboard music for. Accurately played it was, with a lot of feeling for the music, but to my taste a bit too little use of the extra possibilities a concert piano offers: extreme differences between loud and soft. Now Janssen only used this possibillity modestly. The music could have been more exiting with sudden soft phrases, after loud parts that on a concert piano sound extra loud. This is of course not what Bach prescribed, but he didn't know the concert piano, and when you choose to play Bach on it, you better make use of all it's possibilities.
Two of Janssens Bach cd's were on sale after the concert. I bought them and will study them more closely.

PS April 28 - On his cd's Janssen dares to go much further. He really plays with the volume and the tempi in the studio. That makes him really tell a fascinating emotional story with the Partita's and Toccata's. All his Bach keyboard recordings are now published in one cd box for only 60 euro's, till May 1! Type Ivo Janssen in Google and you will find him...

Pergolesi was accompanied by Jaap Zwart on electronic organ. This gave the concert a special sound, that I never heard before. His tempi were a bit 'floating' - during the famous opening bars he almost doubled the speed - but he provided a comfortable surrounding for the two wonderful singers. A bit older they are, Harkink en Van den Akker, but their voices shine as a boys soprano and a young contralto. I was really moved from time to time by the deep emotions, wrapped in beauty, that they managed to dig up from under the 300 years old notes.
Afterwards Marion van den Akker, who with her husband Rian de Waal is also artisticly responsable for Classic in the Moors, told that she had looked for a soprano that has a flexible vibrato, like she has. That's why the voices of Harkink and Van den Akker coloured so wonderfully together. A great surprising evening in the Moors!

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