Concert Program I

Towards Bach

Just as no composer throughout the last 250 years has failed to acknowledge Johann Sebastian Bach’s profound influence on the very course of Western music, so did that Baroque master insatiably absorb the existing canon of Western music throughout his life and career. This season’s opening concert program begins with a sonata for two violins by Salamone Rossi—a transitional voice from the Renaissance to the Baroque period—composed more than half a century before Bach’s birth, and escalates towards Bach’s Fourth Brandenburg Concerto. Along the way are works by Giovanni Legrenzi (himself an important model from Bach’s early musical training), Henry Purcell, and Bach’s greatest contemporaries, Handel and Vivaldi. Together with Bach, these composers illuminate the musical firmament under which the Baroque period paved the way for the innovations to follow in the eighteenth century.

Concert Program I: Towards Bach

Salamone Rossi: Sonata no. 4 sopra l’aria dei Ruggiero (1623)

Giovanni Legrenzi: Sonata “La Foscari” a due, op. 2 (1655)

Henry Purcell: Fantasia upon One Note (1680)

George Frideric Handel: Meine Seele hört im Sehen, HWV 207 (1724–27)

Johann Sebastian Bach: Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten (“Wedding Cantata”), BWV 202 (before 1730)

Antonio Vivaldi/Johann Sebastian Bach: Concerto no. 1 in D Major, BWV 972 (1713–14), after Vivaldi, op. 3, no. 9 (arr. Kenneth Cooper)

Johann Sebastian Bach: “Schafe können sicher weiden” (Sheep may safely graze), from Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd!, BWV 208 (1713)

Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto no. 4 in G Major, BWV 1049 (1721)

Performers

Sooyun Kim flute
Demarre McGill flute
Kathryn Greenbank oboe
Dennis Godburn bassoon

Escher String Quartet
  Adam Barnett-Hart violin
  Wu Jie violin
  Pierre Lapointe viola
  Andrew Janss cello

Erin Keefe violin
Arnaud Sussmann violin
Hsin-Yun Huang viola
Laurence Lesser cello
DaXun Zhang bass
Kenneth Cooper harpsichord
Celena Shafer soprano

Friday, July 18

Prelude Performance*
5:30 p.m., Martin Family Hall, MenloSchool
Free admission

Encounter I: Temperament: How
Music Became a Battleground for
the Great Minds of Western
Civilization, led by Stuart Isacoff
7:30 p.m., Martin Family Hall, Menlo School
Tickets: $35 adult; $15 student

Saturday, July 19

Prelude Performance*
6:00 p.m., St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
Free admission

Concert Program I: Towards Bach
8:00 p.m., St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
Tickets: $50/$32 adult; $25/$10 student

Sunday, July 20

Repeat of Concert Program I
6:00 p.m., Stent Family Hall, Menlo School
Tickets: $70 adult; $35 student

Monday, July 21

Prelude Performance*
6:00 p.m., Martin Family Hall, Menlo School
Free admission

Repeat of Concert Program I
8:00 p.m., Stent Family Hall, Menlo School
Tickets: $70 adult; $35 student

*Learn more about Prelude Performances and Koret Young Performers Concerts.

More Concert Programs:

Concert Program II »
Concert Program III »
Concert Program IV »
Concert Program V »