Baffled rhapsody: Vox Luminis sings Bach Motets at the Wigmore
Bach Motets
Vox Luminis
Wigmore Hall
Stalls X13, £18
13 July 2019
Wigmore page
Programme
Bach:
Prelude and Fugue in B flat
Der Geist hilft
Ciacona in F minor
Ich lasse dich nicht
Prelude and Chorale in E minor
Jesu, meine Freude
Fantasia in A minor
Fürchte dich nicht
Toccata in G
Komm, Jesu, komm
Chorale in F
Singet dem Herrn
Encore
Johann Schelle: Komm, Jesu, komm
When I heard that Vox Luminis, whose Buxtehude concert I had found so incisive, were performing the complete Bach motets I felt my heart thud in my chest and my pulse quicken at my temples. If I were forced at gunpoint by some peculiar hobbyist highwayman to choose my favourite collection of pieces, the Bach motets is probably what would come to my quivering lips. You can’t get better than this music, and the downsides with concert performances, aside from their being so few, are that you rarely hear the motets all as a body and the singers are rarely able to sing all the notes. But if Vox Luminis could bring the sensitivity to Bach that they brought to Buxtehude then this would be a performance indeed.
Such high expectations are almost always baffled. But while Vox Luminis has not wriggled under the skin of the Bach as it had with the Buxtehude (clearly they need to make a recording and then give a concert) they improved as the concert progressed, giving fine interpretations of the big hitters Jesu, Komm and Singet. By the end I felt only mild embarrassment at how much I had rhapsodised to my companion before hand, which given the level of rhapsodising is not a terrible result.
What embarrassed me? The first half in particular was littered with technical errors – raggedy ensemble, bouts of flatness, scuffled semiquavers. Hardly the race horses of vocal Baroque, with the added indignity that each singer, with the exception of director Lionel Meunier, looked so studiously at their copies you’d think we were an audience of Medusas. Of course, these features are common to most live performances of Bach choral works (grump grump grump) but, you know man, I thought Vox Luminis was different.
Fortunately they did improve; and perhaps they’d just timed out on rehearsing Der Geist hilft properly. Jesu had me in perpetual tears, almost as much as my favourite recording does (Herreweghe with Collegium Vocale Ghent, since you ask); Komm was on the whole handled with joyous grace, after a few wobbles between the two choirs; and Singet was a bright beam of warm sunshine filling me right to the tips of my fingers. Technically none of them were perfect – and maybe that is too much to ask of a live performance – but in character and musicality they were a great deal closer to what I was expecting.
One last gripe to end! I’m glad to hear the only-recently-canonic Ich lasse das nicht, even though I don’t like it much, probably (possibly) because I don’t know it as well. Vox seems to feel similarly and turned in their most indifferent rendition of the evening. But just because you give Ich lasse doesn’t mean you can take away Lobet den Herrn! I went in vain hope it would make an encore (it’s perfect as an encore, by the way), but instead got some crummy Schelle – all well and good, but surely only ever of scholarly interest after an evening of pure Bach. Why would you ever choose not to sing Lobet? Mystifying.
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