This programme given by Peter Phillips’ Tallis Scholars in Bath’s annual BachFest traced the German tradition of sacred polyphony, beginning with Orlande de Lassus and culminating in JS Bach.
The very secular Assembly Rooms might not seem the natural context for such a performance, but such was the gloriously golden tone of the Scholars – immediately apparent in the word-painting of Lassus’ Omnes de Saba – that this was forgotten. Indeed, in the Missa Octava by Hassler and the Deutsches Magnificat by Schütz, where the music was divided into two choirs, lines tossed gently back and fore from one to the other conjured the illusion of the double galleries of St Mark’s cathedral in Venice, underlining the formative influence of Gabrieli on his German pupils.
The sound Phillips draws from the Scholars manages to be ethereal and yet full-blooded, uplifting and yet grounded in the very human emotions the words express. Individual character comes through in the occasional solo lines, but in longer held chords the tone is so resonant as to make the air vibrate. Hassler’s Ad Dominum cum Tribularer, with its vivid chromatic colouring, had a piercing beauty. This and the intricacies of the two motets from Schütz’s Geistliche Chormusik paved the way for the Bach cantatas with their chamber organ accompaniment. Most memorable of all was Komm, Jesu, Komm, BWV 229, with the contrast between its lyrically flowing lines and the calm affirmation of its final chorale exquisitely balanced.
