A late substitution can expose the fragility of a concert built around a particular artist. At Zankel Hall, the Orchestra of St Luke’s presented a Bach Festival evening originally planned as Renaud Capuçon’s debut with the ensemble as both violinist and conductor. After his withdrawal, the programme remained unchanged, but the character shifted. Nicholas McGegan took the podium, with Stella Chen as soloist, turning what might have been a violinist-led showcase into a more balanced Bach-Mozart exchange, one that drew on the orchestra’s familiarity with this repertoire.
McGegan was an especially apt replacement, his long association with the OSL making him less an emergency guest than a trusted presence. His deep experience in 18th-century music was evident in crisp articulation, clean textures and buoyant pacing. Historically informed choices came across as second nature rather than doctrine, keeping the programme from hardening into a schematic contrast between Baroque formality and a more conversational Classical idiom.
The divide between the works – roughly half a century – seemed both real and deceptive. Bach’s ritornello designs and French dance forms stood on one side, Mozart’s Classical symmetry and more flexible melodic turns on the other. Yet McGegan made the distance feel shorter, emphasising not rupture but continuity: proportion, clarity of address, dialogue between soloist and ensemble, and an elegance that never excluded vitality.
Chen opened the evening with Mozart’s Adagio K261 and Rondo K373, compact works that can sound like elegant afterthoughts unless given clear shape. She did not inflate them, offering refined, poised playing with a singing line that remained intimate, if not always entirely settled. The Adagio had grace, but its expressive tension emerged only intermittently. The Rondo brought more ease and playfulness, even if it stopped short of real sparkle.
Bach’s Orchestral Suite no. 2 gave the programme its most persuasive stretch. Nominally a suite, the work assigns the flute such a prominent and elaborate role that it often feels like a concerto threaded through a sequence of dances. McGegan shaped the opening Ouverture with stately purpose before allowing the subsequent movements to loosen the music’s formality. At the centre of the performance was Principal Flute Elizabeth Mann, whose nimble articulation and discreet virtuosity gave the suite much of its character. Her line blended naturally with the ensemble when Bach folded the flute into the texture, but came forward with bright assurance in the more soloistic passages. The final Badinerie was swift and witty without becoming showy.
After the interval, Chen returned for Bach’s Violin Concerto in A minor, whose solo part demands both integration and bite. She was most persuasive when she kept a clear profile within the ensemble texture; passages that called for stronger projection and sharper character were less compelling. Outer movements had clarity and direction, but not always the incisive edge needed to give Bach’s argument real momentum. In the slow movement, Chen traced the long-spun melody with delicacy and without sentimentality, though the restraint of her approach occasionally felt inhibiting.
McGegan brought to Mozart’s Symphony no. 29 in A major some of the same virtues that had served his Bach so well: transparent textures, sharply etched rhythms and an alert sense of dance impulse beneath the Classical surface. The opening movement had lift, and the Andante moved with unforced ease. Yet the symphony’s youthful brilliance could have used a sharper dramatic profile; too often, the performance settled for charm where Mozart already hints at something more urgent. The finale brought brisk energy, though not quite the release needed to give the evening a decisive close.