Styles converging in Bach: Schaffhausen Bachfest 2024

In a sliver of Switzerland poking up into Germany, close to the Rhine Falls – the most powerful waterfall in Europe – sits the city of Schaffhausen. With its distinctive Swiss-German Renaissance architecture remarkably well-preserved, including some striking frescos, such idyllic surroundings prove as perfect an environment as any to soak up the music of the great German master, Johann Sebastian Bach.

Schaffhausen’s Bachfest, first held in 1946, celebrates its 30th edition this year, with a ten-concert festival over five days, 8th–12th May, offering a fabulous cross-section of contemporary Bach performance. Stretching from the most expansive of large instrumental and choral ensembles to the smallest of chamber groupings, the festival demonstrates the sheer versatility of the Leipzig cantor – if that were in any doubt.

The festival begins on Wednesday 8th May with the appearance of Stuttgart’s Gaechinger Cantorey, performing the Orchestral Suite no. 3 – one of Bach’s most infectiously ebullient works (famous for its second movement Air). This is contrasted with several sacred works: two cantatas, appropriate to the May season, the time of the Feast of the Ascension, and the Missa brevis BWV 236, one of several shorter Kyrie–Gloria “Lutheran” masses.

Sacred works form the backbone of this year’s Bachfest, which is bookended with another Mass: namely the epic Mass in B minor, a work representing the summit of Bach’s sacred composition, assembled from paraphrases and recomposition of many earlier works. Unlike these earlier Missae breves, the B minor Mass was perhaps never intended for practical performance, and most scholars agree it was never performed in its entirety in Bach’s lifetime. But since his death, it has been central to the rejuvenation of orchestral performance of the composer’s music: Collegium 1704, led by conductor Václav Luks, performs on Sunday 12th May, concluding the festival.

Several of the other Missae breves are performed at the festival, when the Swiss-Italian ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro arrives on Friday. Together with vocal group Voces Suaves, conductor Francesco Corti leads both the G minor and F minor Missae, as well as a pair of Sanctuses. These are contrasted with the Missa sin nomine of Giovanni Palestrina, a composer who was a profound influence on Bach – indeed, this work was one which Bach adapted for his own use in the 1740s.

Another of Bach’s short Missae is performed by Solomon’s Knot on Saturday, in a programme joining together other composers exactly contemporaneous with Bach, all born in the same year, 1685: Domenico Scarlatti and George Frideric Handel. Contrasting the earnestness and sincerity of Bach’s Lutheran Missa BWV 234 with Handel’s flamboyant and cosmopolitan Dixit Dominus would be fascinating enough – but on this occasion audiences will also be treated to Scarlatti’s devastating Stabat Mater as well. The influence of Italian musicians on Bach went extremely deep, especially on his instrumental and keyboard compositions.

Bach’s instrumental compositions are on full display during the Bachfest. On Thursday, Guido Balestracci and others come together to perform the profound and transformative Art of Fugue on a quartet of viole da gamba. While it is a work playable on keyboard instruments, The Art of Fugue also transcends worldly limitations – and as such a consort of viols would seem an ideal environment for this ethereal yet deeply inventive work. Soprano Anna-Lena Elbert and lutenist María Ferré join for contrasting works by Bach’s predecessors, including Buxtehude.

Later on Thursday, Collegium Musicum Rīga’s appearance demonstrates an unusual approach to performing Bach’s instrumental music – to make bespoke arrangements of vocal compositions. Before concluding the concert with the Violin Concerto in A minor, director and recorder player Erik Bosgraaf performs several “Aria Concertos”, arranged from a variety of cantatas. Bosgraaf also performs several contemporary works for recorder and Baroque orchestra, including a world premiere from Victoria Vita Poleva.

Chamber ensemble Spark, comprising recorders and melodicas, strings and piano, also demonstrate a similarly syncretic approach on Thursday, contrasting Bach with works from a variety of other composers – including noted magpie and Beatles fan Luciano Berio; Lennon and McCartney themselves; and younger composers Sebastian Bartmann and the ensemble’s own Christian Fritz. On Friday, the Signum Saxophone Quartet demonstrate a similar approach too – with a diverse programme contrasting Bach with music by Debussy, George Crumb, John Cage, Thelonious Monk and Steve Reich.

In the midst of all this orchestral grandness and inventive recombination, Bach’s own musicianship as an organist and keyboard player might be easy to overlook. Thus two welcome keyboard recitals, nestled in the programme on Friday and Sunday, provide some well-needed space for contemplation. On Friday, organist Bine Bryndorf performs works by Bach’s predecessors Franz Tunder and Dietrich Buxtehude, the latter of whom was a profound influence on the young composer (who once travelled 400 kilometres simply to hear him perform).

Then on Sunday, by contrast, Jermaine Sprosse performs a series of keyboard works mostly by Bach’s sons Wilhelm Friedemann and Johann Christoph. These recitals demonstrate that the stylistic divergences between Bach’s predecessors and his successors are truly wild – and as such situate the composer less as a summit than as a transitional figure, a meeting point where divergent styles converge. In its ten concerts over five days, this is what the whole Bachfest does, too.

See all listings for concerts at the Schaffhausen Bachfest.

This preview was sponsored by Internationales Bachfest Schaffhausen.