Festival: Bach Unwrapped

J S Bach's opus ultimum, the Mass in B Minor, was also the opus ultimum of the year-long Bach Unwrapped series at Kings Place. Unfortunately, it proved not to be the crowning glory it might have been.

I must admit that Bach through Brass, as this concert was entitled, filled me with a certain amount of trepidation. Bach, on instruments for which the music in the programme was not designed, on instruments which were not even around in Bach’s time (at least not in their modern-day form), did not sound immediately appealing; nevertheless, something drew me in, and I was pleasantly surprised.

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”, goes the familiar phrase, and that can be applied in life to any number of things, including music. Were the father of harmony, Johann Sebastian Bach, still alive today, he would be beyond flattered.