Bohemian baroque, artistic director Rachel Podger’s inspired theme for this year’s festival, was appropriate given that region’s early historical association with the Celts. The music is hardly familiar territory, so this was a welcome extension to aural as well as geographical boundaries.
In Brecon Cathedral, Robert Hollingworth directed a performance of Jan Dismas Zelenka’s Missa Dei Patris, the instrumental introduction of its opening kyrie immediately bouncing into life and lifting spirits on the wettest of nights. Zelenka’s propensity for navigating transitions between bright and lively sections with slower and more contemplative ones was expertly handled by Hollingworth. The further contrasts of choral with solo writing, of major with minor modes, of dance rhythms with lyrical arioso phrasing and highly chromatic lines, and of expressive harmony with inventive counterpoint, all added to the impression of a composer revelling – sometimes overindulging, as Hollingworth discreetly suggested – in his craft. Zelenka’s Lamention One, pro Die Mercurii Sancto, in which the soloist was George Clark, was just one of the neat interpolations in the mass.
Heinrich Biber’s Rosary Sonata No 11, was another of those interpolations, ravishingly played by Podger, who is a passionate advocate of the composer. Biber’s middle name Ignaz is the clue to his Bohemian birth and, maverick that he was, it was his central position in this era that Podger’s Brecon Baroque ensemble celebrated the following night. The virtuosity and irrepressible quality of his music, alternating exuberance with poignancy, is captivating, not least the programmatic and sometimes polytonal Battalia, with its final sad lament for fallen musketeers. Biber’s feel for the unusual was also reflected in his Serenada à Cinque, whose Ciacona is the song of the nightwatchman; lights were dimmed for the appearance of baritone Jack Bowtell with his lantern.
Works by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer and Georg Muffat, Bohemians by adoption, also featured yet, overall, it was the highly rhythmic dancing – sometimes even foot-stamping – quality of the music and Podger’s direction of her players that proved so irresistible.
• Brecon Baroque festival runs until 28 October.
