Saturday, March 28, 8 p.m., Fine Arts Center Concert Hall, Chamber Seating
$40, $35, $15; Five College, GCC and 17 & under $15, $12, $10
His Bach performances are “a revealing journey into the soul,” states The Washington Post. Jeremy Denk continues his exploration of Bach in a concert with the renowned Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Conducting from the keyboard, Denk presents Bach’s Second and Fourth concertos, and conducts serenades by Dvo?ák, and his greatest pupil (and son-in-law), Josef Suk.
Audience members are invited to a pre-performance talk by NEPR Classical Music host Walter Carroll at 7 p.m. at the University Museum of Contemporary Art (lower level of FAC).
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Fantastic concert! what a treat to have these amazing musicians in Amherst.
The Jeremy Denk/Academy of St Martin in the Fields was fantastic. The clarity and precision of the orchestra was incredible, and Jeremy Denk’s performance was bright and infectious. I wish Mr Denk had returned to the stage at the end of the concert to share in the standing ovation…he was certainly deserving .
I thought it was close to a perfect concert. The ensemble was just extraordinary and I had the sense that these people had been playing together and enjoying themselves and each other for a long time. I can see that for certain musical temperaments being part of the ASMF would be more rewarding than being either a member of a symphony or a soloist or even a member of a trio or quartet.
There were moments when I wished Denk was playing a harpsichord rather than a piano but perhaps that’s my own sense of what Bach might have “heard”.
One more point: a well-chosen program with the Bach followed by Dvorak (a wonderfully tuneful piece to end with) and beginning with Suk who was (I assumed) mentored by even related to Dvorak.
What was the encore? Mozart? Perhaps it too was a serenade–“nachtmusik” would remind us all that “serenade” was evening music as opposed to “aubade”.
The concert was wonderful. Walter Carroll, however, was not. He was unprepared technologically, played inadequate samples of the music when he managed to find the selections he wanted, and barely talked about the music, which was supposed to be the content of the talk. Instead, he spent most of the time rehashing information about the orchestra and soloist, all of which could be found in the program.
The talk was intended to ‘enhance our enjoyment’ of the concert, but in the end, shed little light and no insight about what we would hear. Even his playing of the Goldberg aria, while beautiful, was irrelevant to the evening. (Or at least he didn’t attempt to make it relevant.)
I hope future pre-concert events are better planned.
The ACADEMY OF ST MARTIN IN THE FIELDS WITH JEREMY DENK concert was truly outstanding and probably the finest classical concert in the valley this year. I have been following the Academy of St. Martins in the Fields for over fifty years, collecting a great number of CD’s in that time, including marvelous ones with Iona Brown and Murray Perahia as soloists. (The group organized in 1959, and I bought their first recording in 1961.) I even visited the lovely church on Trafalgar Square in London and heard a heard a short concert there.)
I’m wondering why UMass can’t bring in other great orchestras and create a subscription series of orchestras and chamber groups. I see posters in the lobby of Chicago Symphony (with Solti) and the Sydney Orchestra in the their glory years. Couldn’t UMass fill their concert hall with symphony orchestras from New Jersey, Hartford, Portland, and Albany? All fine orchestras within less than 200 miles from here. I’m certain financial arrangements could be worked out with these orchestras.
Two or three busses and a instrument truck could get the groups here without any trouble.