Bach Father & Son, & Their Peers:
J.S. & C.P.E Bach, Handel, Buxtehude
Saturday, Oct. 7, 2017 @ 7 p.m.
Saint James Place
352 Main Street, Great Barrington
Pre-concert talk at 6 p.m. with
Artistic Director Dan Stepner
Daniel Stepner, baroque violin
Laura Jeppesen, viola da gamba
Peter Sykes, harpsichord
Andrea LeBlanc, baroque flute
PROGRAM
Dietrich Buxtehude
Sonata a due in B Flat, for violin, gamba and continuo
Georg Friderich Handel
Sonata in B Minor, for flute and continuo
C.P.E. Bach
Sonata in C Minor, for keyboard and violin
Intermission
Johann Sebastian Bach
A Musical Offering (selections)
Three-part Ricercare
5 canons
Trio Sonata
The announcement of this concert at St. James Place came as a very pleasant surprise. There’s no need to wait until June to hear an Aston Magna Concert! And that is certainly a event much-anticipated among early music lovers and Berkshire residents. Aston Magna regulars, Daniel Stepner, baroque violin, Laura Jeppesen, viola da gamba, Peter Sykes, harpsichord, and Andrea LeBlanc, baroque flute, will play excerpts from a central work by J. S. Bach, A Musical Offering, covering the basic styles of composition contained within it: canons, a fugue (ricercare), and a trio sonata, as well as sonatas—respectively for viola da gamba and violin, flute, and violin—by Buxtehude, Handel, and C. P. E. Bach. The selection from the Offering is especially sympathetic to the other works on the program, with the simpler ricercare (the one Bach was able to improvise on the spot, when Frederick the Great presented him with his theme and the challenge to write a fugue on it) and the Trio Sonata.
Music doesn’t get any better than this, and neither do the executants!
