Photo: Nick Rutter via Twitter

Anyone who has ever walked through Trafalgar Square has at least seen the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Not only an attractive, imposing church at the top of the East side of the square, this well-maintained and run institution is popular for its sizeable crypt cafe as well as renovated meeting spaces.

Above all both those familiar with London and tourists alike are drawn to it as a beautiful baroque church, both inside and out. As a working church, the interior is in constant use. Most regularly, this involves concert-giving. The music often features familiar music from the period (concerts are often advertised as ‘candle-lit’ to capitalise on the atmosphere).

This was the nature of the programme last night as the Sonoro Choir and (period instrument) Baroque Ensemble gave a concert of music by Vivaldi, Bach and – on his birthday, no less – Handel. I had gone, principally, to see some colleagues perform the Bach Magnificat BWV 243, the brisk and beautiful canticle setting. This was rendered with great vitality but one would have expected nothing less in a concert that brought an admirable heft to Zadok the Priest and some proper musical shape to Vivaldi’s much-loved Gloria.

Most interesting though was to see the early flowering of this new ensemble. Conductor Neil Ferris suggests that their ‘essentially European sound has been realised by allowing our singers to be free to use all of their voice… The choir will perform Romantic through to contemporary repertoire, as well as having a natural affinity with the Baroque’. This intent was validated with a spirited a capella encore, Charles Wood’s ‘Hail Gladdening Light’, a piece written a good 150 years after much of what had gone before. A full church seemed to like the music very much.

It was lovely to discover that our friends at Oxford Baroque were coming to London’s King’s Place to perform in the Baroque Unwrapped series. The group’s director David Lee had drawn together a programme called ‘A New Song: Bach and the German motet‘, featuring Singet dem Herrn, Jesu meine Freude and Lobet den Herrn (BWVs 225, 227 & 230) preceded by a number of other works by Walther, Schütz, Gabrieli, Hassler, Erbach, Roth, Calvisius & Jacob Handl.

Simply staged, the concert was given with the eight singers arranged either side of a continuo group (organ, violone and viola da gamba), with a certain amount of re-positioning between pieces. This antiphonal attention paid great dividends. The performance felt properly discursive not least as the group, operating without a dedicated conductor, often had their heads out of their scores to look (and smile!) at one another. The to-and-fro of the music was carried on a clear sense of style. I loved the clarity and finesse of the singing, particularly noteworthy in music high in the voice. Sopranos Emily Atkinson & Rachel Ambrose Evans are particularly praiseworthy here for keeping their sound woven into the top of the ensemble – as well as the stamina needed to singing at a calibrated dynamic in altitude throughout.

Such clear, sensibly-paced singing from everyone inevitably made for a true ensemble. This was most impressive in Singet, taken at terrific speed to begin with, but one that made lovely sense of the central aria and chorale. But the greatest benefit was in the second-half performance of Jesu, meine Freude. This occluded, intense performance took the group down to the basic five singers with the super decision to double the alto with Gavin Kibble’s gamba in the delicate Gute Nacht, O Wesen quartet. Beautiful.

Of the other works, JL Bach‘s Das ist meine Freude made the greatest impression with its detailed rhetoric (there’s a lot of effective space in this work). A terrific evening of re-visiting lively re-interpretation of old friends and discovering new, pertinent cousins (literally, in Johann Ludwig’s case!).

We were very pleased to see a large and appreciative congregation for last Sunday’s Bach Vespers (in conjunction with St. Anne’s Lutheran Church, at the church of St. Mary-at-hill). It was a slightly hair-raising occasion: the popular church building was busy with a concert earlier in the afternoon so we found ourselves rehearsing across the road in St. Margaret Pattens, using an electronic keyboard programmed to the temperament of the chamber organ we used later! Whatever the circumstances, we were happy to be performing fine music (from Bach’s first year of tenure in Leipzig, just before he wrote the St. John Passion) together. You can find more details of the service, including the order of service on the Archive page.

It was mentioned in the announcements at Vespers that some of the Collective will go to Berlin next month to perform in a Bach Vesper(s) auf Deutsch with the previous Cantor of St. Anne’s Lutheran Church, Martin Knizia. Emily Atkinson joins an international line-up of performers including Capella Vitalis Berlin, familiar from past summer Bach Festivals, to perform cantatas BWV 93 & 82, should you find yourself in Berlin on 6 March.

We are very pleased to be offering the music for the first St. Anne’s Lutheran Church Bach Vespers of 2016. St. Anne’s Lutheran Church is resident at St. Mary-at-hill, an idiosyncratic, portmanteau building of various architectural input, most notably the clean, lofty interior of Sir Christopher Wren. It is a very popular venue for musicians, with a wonderful William Hill organ (1848), space and seating for over two hundred and modern facilities.

It also is a lovely, open acoustic and, importantly an appropriate place for the Lutheran congregation of St. Anne’s Church to use for worship. Most important to the musical-liturgical association of the Lutheran tradition is the music of J.S. Bach. We are looking forward to continuing a tradition started in this same church in 1982 of performing Bach’s music within the liturgy.

On this occasion, the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, we will perform the Cantata BWV 81, Jesus schläft, was soll ich hoffen?, as well as a movement from another cantata appropriate for the time of year, the famous BWV 82 (in fact 82a, no. 3, Schlummert ein), in an unusual arrangement for soprano.

There will be other music by Bach and his contemporaries during the service, which lasts just over an hour. Admission to Bach Vespers is free (you are invited to make a donation at the collection) – and you would be welcome. If you want to know more about the City Bach Collective, then do sign up to our newsletter using the box to the right.

The City Bach Collective website is launched this month. The Collective is a group of musicians who continue to enjoy playing Bach (and other Baroque music) together in the City of London.

Providing music for places of worship and events in the City has always been an ad hoc business. For all that music is important, freelance musicians can often feel like an ephemeral part of the venerable institutions in which and for which they perform, even after many years of regular commitment. There is a tremendous history of performing music in the City that all musicians feel connected to and proud of. It is worth recording, celebrating and sharing.

The City Bach Collective is one particular, prominent seam of this musical tapestry, connected to the programming of Bach cantatas in concert for student performers in 1976. Please read more about this history on the About page.