Bach Inspired: The Bach Choir's fabulous project

Released to tie in with The Bach Choir's Easter performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion at the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday April 16 (11 am), Bach Inspired is a "passion project" that takes six chorales from the St Matthew (sung in English, hence the Anglicised title used here) and justaposes them with six new works inspired by Bach's music. There is also an opportunity to "Come & Sing" the St Matthew Passion with David Hill at St John's Smith Square on Saturday March 19 (= tomorrow) with an evening discussion Why Listen to Bach? with Richard Morrision and the album composers. Soloists foe the live St Matthew feature Ed Lyon as the Evangeliist, Mark Stone as Christ, Sophie Bevan, soprano, Jane Irwin, mezzo, Toby Spencem tenor and Roderick Williams, baritone.

The new works were commissioned by the Bach Choir: composers are James B. Wilson, Gavin Higgins, Héloïse Werner, Charlotte Harding, Carmen Hu and Des Oliver. This was in response to a second year in lockdown without performing the St Matthew Passion (an annual event in The Bach Choir's calendar: it is performed in English in a translation by the tenor Neil Jenkins). The invitation was fairly open in its instruction: challenge, expore and take risks with Bach's music. Settings use words by the likes of Hildegard of Bingen, George Herbert, Christina Rossetti, Arthur Rimbaud and Sarojini Naidu.

Here's a video of the composers discussing the importance of music education and the impact it had on them as composers:

The idea behind the project was by Mark Austin, who produced the album. David Hill conducts the Faust Chamber Orchestra (personally, I like the juxtaposition of the Devil-invoking Faust and the St Matthew!). The project explicitly builds on The Bach Choir's history: the choir was formed in 1876 to give the first performance in Britain of Bach's Mass in B-Minor.

The translations of the chorales are by a variety of authors (including "Anonymous"!) and the performances precede the new works, so "O sacred head surrounded by crown of piercing thorn" (translated Henry Baker) is heard before Charlotte Harding's Glow. Born 1989, Harding zooms in on one phrase (a reference to the "glow of life" decaying) and inverts it, resulting in an emergence into light (as in an infant's journey). Texts by Hildegard are used here, with a single cello note representing steady light. Let's hear the Bach chorale first, then Glow:

Gavin Higgins (born 1983) sets William Blake ("Cruelty has a Human Heart," from A Divine Image) in response to the chorale "How falsely doth the world accuse!". The opening is markedly arresting after the Bach - almost filmic, one might suggest. This is reflecting the anger at injustice, contrasting with a quiet dissonance. A meditation on  human cruelty and capacity for evil finds its metaphor in the fire and metal of the industral revolution.

It is a text by Rimbaud is the basis for Héloïse Werner's piece, Inner Phrases, a response to the chorale "Receive me, my Redeemer". The Rimbaud comes from Les illuminations, Feuillet 12, the bells of the poem reflected in the jubilant descending sclaes. There is a certain compositional generosity about Werner's piece: its sophistication appears as part of an over-arching sense of joy. Fascinating that she creates an ending that dissolves, heralded by plaintive solo cello (played by Colin Alexander).

Des Oliver's Dreams in the Garden of Love's Sleep (text Sarojini Naidu, from Song of a Dream) uses repetiion of both melody and pattern to create a mesmerically swirling texture - certainly discombobulatory - until keening vocal phrases and complex chords illuminated from within take us to a different state, one perhaps meant to invoke ritual. It is preceded by Bach's "O Father, let Thy will bw done":

The tender strains of Bach's "Be near me, Lord, when dying" lead to Carmen Ho's Easter Wings, which sets words by the metaphysical poet George Herbert. Ho was awarded the RPS Composition Prize (2018) and was a recent finalist of the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award. Her music is arresting, containing huge contrasts and making significant demands on the singers - demands consistently met with aplomb by The Bach Choir here:

I would very much like to hear more of Ho's music.

The final piece is James B. Wilson's Who has seen the wind, a setting of Chirstina Rosetti in response to Bach's chorale, "Commit thy way to Jesus," the text of which references wind, a resence that is yet invisible. The purity of The Bach Choir in this piece is remarkable - just listen to the first soprano entrance in the Wilson:

This is a fine project, beautifully recorded at St John's, Smith Square, London in July 2021, which sits perfectly within The Bach Choir's many activities: