GREAT BARRINGTON — Some of J.S. Bach’s offspring must have been rotten kids. We make this assumption because the youngsters seem to have been careless with their father’s autograph scores and … lost some of them. This is part of a story violinist and Artistic Director Daniel Stepner told from the stage of Saint James Place on September 26 before the Aston Magna Chamber Players performed, among other works, the Trio Sonata in C Major, a piece once thought to have been written by J.S. Bach but almost certainly composed by his student, harpsichord wunderkind Johann Gottlieb Goldberg (of “Variations” fame).
Professor Emeritus of the Practice of Music at Brandeis University, Stepner excels at explaining all kinds of things about early music and the instruments his group uses to perform it. It’s part of his mission in life.
Sunday’s program, “Masterpieces of the Late Baroque,” was a mix of works by J.S. Bach and four of his most capable contemporaries: French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau, viola da gamba specialist Marin Marais, lutenist Robert de Visée, and Louis XV’s court violinist Jean-Marie Leclair. Plus one brilliant Baroque composer who hasn’t always gotten his due. These composers being perhaps a little less familiar to audiences than Bach, Stepner came prepared, as always, with pre-concert remarks and program notes to help make the music come alive. (You always learn something new at an Aston Magna concert.)
If anyone had any doubt about the suitability of Saint James Place for performing the most subdued chamber music repertoire, it would have been erased Sunday by Catherine Liddell’s unaccompanied lute, which was easily audible at the back of the hall when other instruments fell silent. The place wasn’t quite packed, but they did run out of programs. So it must have been a bigger crowd than anyone expected.
Edson Scheid’s violin playing promises to eclipse his academic pedigree, which includes Juilliard, Yale, and Universität Mozarteum Salzburg. And when he joins this group on stage, the energy level goes up a notch or two. Scheid plays things on a baroque violin that many violinists cannot play on a modern one, like the Paganini caprices. (Yes, of course, anyone can play Paganini caprices on a baroque violin. But Scheid plays them in tune.)
Scheid’s special mojo went to good use on the program’s last work, the aforementioned Trio Sonata in C Major. There’s a reason they saved this piece for last, and it seemed they must have put in extra rehearsal hours with it, because the whole group really got together and made it gel. It’s a perfect example of why you should get your early music from Aston Magna rather than some group that’s always playing it safe.
They gave a concert at Hudson Hall on the 25th, so, after being forced by COVID to cancel their 48th season and deliver their concerts online, the Aston Magna Chamber Players finally got to perform for live audiences, and it’s hard to say who was more pleased, the band or the fans.
