If last year’s inaugural Vancouver Bach Festival was curated to remind people of the mass appeal of the festival’s namesake – a program of the 18th-century rock star’s greatest hits, if you will – this second year is deliberately more challenging.
“[Last year], we had the B Minor Mass, we had The Musical Offering, The Art of Fugue, Goldberg Variations, to start. All pieces that, if you know Bach, you know those pieces, because they’re kind of the iconic works,” says festival artistic director Matthew White, of Early Music Vancouver (EMV). “This year, we decided to try a festival that was slightly more challenging, to see if people would be as interested, and if they would trust us.”
White admits that he wasn’t sure, last year, how the classical music festival would be received; attendance for the summer concerts tripled to about 5,000 people under the new format, however, with some shows welcoming upwards of 1,300 guests.
It’s a credit to the power of Bach as a headliner. But what of Martin Luther – the revolutionary philosopher and music lover who played a seminal role in the Protestant Reformation (a major 16th-century European movement aimed at reforming the beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church)?
Early Music Vancouver is honouring Bach and the 500th anniversary of the Reformation this year with a program that celebrates music’s ability to transform and persuade, featuring easy-listening opportunities like Bach’s St. John Passion – one of the most famous Lutheran oratorios ever written (Aug. 11) – alongside more complex musical conversations, like the Lutheran Vespers: Songs For Troubled Times, which were written following Europe’s devastating Thirty Years War and reportedly had a large influence on Bach.
“Martin Luther was a huge influence on Bach, and the music of the 17th and 18th century and beyond, in fact” says White. “So we thought we couldn’t let the 500th anniversary year pass without at least three or four or five concerts being connected in some way to Martin Luther’s legacy.”
Other highlights include Bach’s Italian Concerto – two of the composer’s most iconic works for keyboard – as well as an opportunity to hear works by Mendelssohn, Moscheles and Bach (Conversions, Aug. 4) on a recently restored fortepiano that was donated to Early Music Vancouver.
“Last year the festival was very, very well received and very well attended,” says White. “It said to all of us that there is an appetite for classical music. … So this second iteration is, I like to think, a slightly more balanced and challenging festival that offers a lot of music that people won’t know so well.”
• The Vancouver Bach Festival runs now to Aug. 11 at Christ Church Cathedral and the Chan Centre. Tickets $10-$68 at earlymusic.bc.ca.
