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Bach: B minor Mass (Concert Review - The Evening Standard, 2015)
The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge is no ordinary Oxbridge choir. Fielding no fewer than 30 choral scholars as well as professional stiffening, it ranks with the best in the world. In Bach’s Mass in B Minor, the penultimate event in the 30th Christmas Festival at St John’s, it delivered singing of the highest calibre in both the tightly wrought fugal movements and the freer, more celebratory o
Bach: B minor Mass (Concert Review - Music OMH, 2015)
This is the 30th Christmas Festival at St John’s, and it has been an exceptional one in terms of variety of repertoire, quality of performance and excellence of soloists. This penultimate evening featuring one of Bach’s greatest works precedes Handel’s Messiah on the 23rd and featured the superb Choir of Trinity College Cambridge and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Stephen Layton,
Bach: B minor Mass (Concert Review - The Arts Desk, 2014)
While the embers of the concert year are dying out around the country, you can be sure of a great blaze-up at St John’s Smith Square. The annual Christmas Festival of quality early-music groups and top choirs – this is the 29th – now traditionally culminates in two great works for chorus and orchestra. Over the past three years I’ve reeled at the best of Messiahs, four cantatas out of the six maki
Bach: B minor Mass (Concert Review - The Independent, 2014)
Bach has bite under Layton's masterly direction* * * * * Bach’s Mass in B Minor is a mystery and a miracle, and had to wait a century for its premiere; as the summation of all Bach’s vocal ideas it demands exceptional performers. And that’s what it got in this lovely Baroque auditorium, with four fine soloists, the Choir of Trinity College Cambridge, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Auckland Philharmonia: St John Passion (Concert Review - Bachtrack, 2014)
The St John Passion was originally composed for the Good Friday service in Leipzig in 1724, and Stephen Layton has made a tradition of performing this work every year around Easter with his Polyphony ensemble in London. Given this and the experience of his revelatory B minor Mass with the same orchestra two years ago, I had high expectations of this concert which were, one or two blots aside, larg
Holst Singers: Radiant Light (Concert Review - Bachtrack, 2014)
The Temple Music series held in the beautiful Temple Church features some star studded early evening recitals and intriguing repertoire, and tonight’s concert was no exception. The Holst Singers are an experienced group, performing a wide variety of concerts around London and the world. Tonight we were treated to a Russian choral extravaganza featuring some of the lesser known Russian composers al