Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | 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.

Tonight’s programme was a real treat for Bach enthusiasts: one of the finest chamber orchestras in the world performing two of the most popular concertos, joined by Carolyn Sampson for two heart-wrenching cantatas for soprano and obbligato flute. We started with Cantata 209, “Non sa che sia dolore”.

Bach’s final work The Art of Fugue, left incomplete at his death in 1750, has long been famous for (among other things) not having specified its instrumentation. It’s written in open score – each line of music, or “voice”, is given a distinct printed line, making it hard to guess what instrument Bach actually had in mind to play it.

It seems an unlikely concert title: Bach and electronic improvisations, but that is exactly what the unassuming Pekka Kuusisto informed us we were going to be experiencing at Kings Place on Monday night.

With such a star-studded line-up at a concert that had been sold out for weeks, this was always going to be an evening to remember. Bach’s St Matthew Passion is one of those iconic pieces that never gets old, and every time I hear the throbbing bass of the opening chorus, I still get a tingle of excitement.

Seasonal concert programmes come in all shapes and sizes. Reflecting the many sides of Christmas, they range from the commercial to the spiritual, from bombastic celebrity endorsement to the simplicity of choristers by candlelight.