Review: Newcastle Bach Choir at The Sage Gateshead

Mar 9 2010 by Tom Bristow, The Journal

JS BACH blew forth from his 18th Century Leipzig to the banks of the Tyne on Sunday night courtesy of Newcastle Bach Choir.

The German composer’s Christmas cantata of 1725, Unsere Mund sei voll Lachens (May our mouths be full of laughter), made for an uplifting start.

The enthusiastic choir supported baritone Michael Davis who strode forward confidently, but could have taken some German pronunciation lessons from tenor Charles Daniels.

The triumphant cantata 51, Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen! (Exult in God in every land!), was then powered around the hall by the statuesque soprano Joanne Lunn.

Accompanied by Crispian Steele- Perkins on trumpet, her voice would have excited the most tone deaf of eardrums.

The stirring start to cantata 51 gave way to a darker movement in which the soprano movingly conveyed the beauty of Bach’s music.

His Lutheran lyrics might have less significance for a 21st Century audience but the work of a man dead for 260 years reverberated powerfully.

The string section’s bows bounced through Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major towards the finale –Magnificat in D major.

Sung in Latin, the final compos- ition carried less power than the two earlier cantatas, but with the beauty of Bach’s baroque brought so professionally to life few would have minded.