There are many places in Charleston where you can go to connect with the sights, the textures, and even the fragrances of the 18th- and 19th-centuries, but it’s rarer to plug in to the sound of Charleston, yesteryear. Chamber music by popular composers of the time, played both by European-trained musicians and talented amateurs, was frequently performed in the city’s sonorous drawing rooms and ballrooms. Thanks to the Bach Society of Charleston, audiences can listen to the same music today, played on similar period instruments, in environments with the accoustics in which they would originally have been heard. It’s the best kind of deja vu, or deja entendu.
Come celebrate this tradition on February 21st with a chamber concert featuring countertenor Ricard Bordas, soprano Margaret Kelly-Cook, Allison Willett on period violin, and Murray Somerville on period harpsichord at the Charleston Library Society (the country’s second oldest circulating library). The musicians will perform several pieces by J.S. Bach after which Pulizter Prize nominated, Harvard professor Christoph Wolff, author of Bach: The Learned Musician, will offer insights into the little known private side of Bach. Apparently, there’s more to Bach than the severe be-wigged composer we all know by sight.
This statue of Bach in the German town of Arnstadt, where he spent early days, hints at the mysterious man behind the music and the myth, with whom we will become more acquainted at the Bachanalia.
What better way to conclude an evening of intimate chamber music and insights than with a reception featuring wine, cheeses, and charcuterie from Charleston’s finest fromagerie, Goat, Sheep, Cow.
For more information and to buy tickets, visit bachsocietyofcharleston.org.
As wonderful as it will be, this evening is just an amuse bouche for the Bach Society of Charleston’s Spring Festival (March 8-10) featuring music by Handel, Vivaldi, and J. S. Bach performed on period instruments and by voices trained in the Baroque style and presented in appropriately historic venues.
For information and tickets, visit bachsocietyofcharleston.org.
