Bach By Candlelight and The Atea Quintet, Lichfield Festival - review
Fine performers in historic settings can produce quite magical concerts - but the experience can also be considerably enhanced when the promoters have inspired ideas.
This was indeed the case at one of the classical concerts during the opening weekend of the Lichfield Festival, when the award-winning young solo cellist Michael Petrov performed the Bach Cello Suites by candlelight in the magnificent setting of the city’s cathedral.
Very much a rising star of the classical world, Bulgarian-born Petrov has performed solo and with leading orchestras throughout Europe as well as in the USA and China. He is due to release his first solo album soon, with works by Poulenc, Franck and Dutilleux.
In fact, one of the works from that disc, Dutilleux’s Trois Strophes, formed a dramatic conclusion to concert, following immaculate interpretations of J S Bach’s sublime solo masterpieces at the late night Lichfield concert on Sunday.
In the powerful and challenging Dutilleux work, Petrov created real musical fireworks - a passionate, utterly committed, performance.
Earlier on Sunday, the excellent Atea Quintet presented a stimulating programme of mainly 19th and 20th Century works at St Mary’s in the city’s Market Square.
This year the prize-winning wind quintet are artists in residence at the festival.
Featuring flautist Alena Walentin, clarinettist Anna Hashimoto, bassoonist Ashley Myall, horn player Chris Beagles and oboeist Philip Haworth, the quintet blended beautifully and projected great musicality even in the most harmonically demanding passages.
After charming and bright works by Briccialdi and Bozza, they explored the Wind Quintet by Thea Musgrave, a piece with - to my ears - all the charm of an aimless ramble through a grim concrete housing estate on a wet day, alleviated by twittering birdsong.
However, the second half was a joy, culminating in a superb performance of Nielsen’s Wind Quintet, Op. 43, with its glorious - if curiously fragmented - final movement.
The festival had opened on Friday, July 5 with performances including a show by pop singer-songwriter KT Tunstall, and continues until Saturday, July 13 with classical, folk, gospel and jazz concerts.
By John Watson
