To describe Philippe Herreweghe as a Renaissance man doesn’t even begin to do him justice. The Flemish conductor is more like a time-travelling musical superhero, imbuing every note that catches his attention with light and life.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
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It may sound like I’m heaping too many compliments on this man. But some people defy modest description.
Don’t take my word for it; there are about three-dozen tickets still left to witness the wonders of Herreweghe and his Collegium Vocale Gent at Koerner Hall tomorrow (Friday) night.
The Belgian period-performance masters are presenting something from the core of their repertoire: Parts 1, 2, 3 and 6 of J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, with a 23-piece orchestra and 16 singers.
Bach pieced together the six parts of the Christmas Oratorio during his long tenure as the music director at Church of St Thomas in Leipzig. Musicologists say that Bach recycled a lot of material from secular cantatas to create these works, which are musical reflections of Bible readings assigned for six special church services bookended by Christmas Day and the feast of the Epiphany on Jan. 6.
There’s a narrator (Evangelist) who sings in recitative, soloists who sing arias that reflect on the Biblical passages, and chorales, which are the people’s response to the message. The quality of the Collegium Vocale is such that the soloists are drawn from the choir itself.
A lot of people mistakenly think of Bach’s highly structured counterpoint as being too mathematical and impersonal, but, in fact, his sacred choral works are intensely personal experiences that are supposed to reflect the Protestant believer’s one-on-one relationship with God. And people who aren’t interested in the religious connections can simply enjoy the beautiful music.
Herreweghe represents the second generation of European period-performance masters — the same generation that gave Toronto Jeanne Lamon. These are the people who absorbed the back-to-basics ideals of Helmuth Rilling and the late Gustav Leonhardt and then began pushing for a bit more colour and liveliness.
It’s been 42 years since Herreweghe, a piano student at the University of Ghent, decided to explore his love of Early and Baroque music by founding the Collegium Vocale with a small band of like-minded peers. He went from being a local keener to wide recognition after Leonhardt chose him to help with a Bach recording project in the mid-1970s.
Since then, Herreweghe has spread his conductorly and scholarly wings to encompass music from the Renaissance to the 20th century with a range of ensembles he has founded, including the Orchestre des Champe Elisées. He is also the longtime principal conductor of the Royal Flemish Philharmonic and a frequent guest with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amserdam and the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Bach’s Leipzig.
Since founding Phi, his own recording label, two years ago, Herreweghe has begun re-recording some of the great works from his past. Typically, the conductor will spend a couple of seasons touring a work before entering a recording studio. The Collegium has not yet re-recorded the Christmas Oratorio, but it presenting it as a television broadcast in Europe on Christmas Day, so we an only assume that Herreweghe thinks this interpretation is ready for the record.
It means we should hear something especially good on Friday night.
For all the concert details and ticket information, click here.
Here is Peter Kooj (also set to be the soloist in Toronto) singing the bass aria from Part 1 of the Christmas Oratorio, with the Collegium, followed by the penultimate chorus from Part 2:
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
