You’ve probably heard of this guy

When you go to a concert series called Bach, Revisited, you expect most pieces to be related to Bach. Miller Theater’s website on the series describes the concerts as events which “put contemporary composers in dialogue with the Baroque master.” The final event of the series on the year was “Sofia Gubaidulina + Bach,” presented by the Ensemble Signal. The concert featured two keyboard soloists, three chamber pieces, and a carefully reordered program. While I was more a fan of the Bach than the Revisited, the musical virtuosity, and the fun from mixing old and new, made Miller’s last event of the academic year an entertaining evening.

The program featured three pieces of Bach and two of Gubaidulina, a 20^th century Russian composer who has strong affiliations with Bach. “Both artists’ music are influenced by their faith,” says Miller’s website, “and they share a unique blend of emotional transcendence and compositional rigor.” While one of Gubaidulina’s pieces on the night directly quoted Bach, her first piece on the program, “Chaconne,” wasn’t as immediately connected to the Baroque composer. It was originally going to lead off the concert, but it got pushed slightly back in the program thanks to a last minute change. The choice to begin a Bach, Revisited concert with a Bach piece was unquestionably better, although the way they changed around the program made it so that, after the intermission, there were no more Gubaidulina pieces. This made the first half of the concert heavily modern.

But before it got too 20^th century, the concert began with a lone harpsichord beneath the spotlight. Kristian Bezuidenhout, a South African with an astounding resume, came out to play “Chaconne in A minor,” a harpsichord showcase based on a violin partita, composed by Bach and arranged by Danish harpsichordist Lars Ulrik Mortensen. Compared to the solo piano onstage, the harpsichord is quiet and does not overwhelm the room. However, once the harpsichord gets more polyphonic, its situational superiority over the piano shines. The harpsichord (both the instrument and Bezuidenhout’s crisp playing) does not sustain or echo as much as the piano, and so its runs are clear and impressive. Bezuidenhout shook his head slowly from side to side through nearly the entire chaconne, a feat much less impressive then the emotional shift he created in the room when the piece shifted into major two-thirds of the way through the piece. When he was done with his performance, he took a bow (and then another), and made way for the modern instruments, and music, on the stage.

Gubaidulina’s own “Chaconne” began as cacophonously as it could. Versus the harpsichord, the piano (played by Daniel Pesca) lit up the concert hall, and the “Chaconne” begins with what sounds like wrong chord after wrong chord. The piece was angry and stormy for the most part, with the generous use of the pedal showing off the piano’s ability to sustain, contrary to the harpsichord. It fit into the theme of Bach Revisited because it, like many Baroque pieces, is based on an eight bar bassline and, in general, follows the generic Baroque form of the chaconne. Pesca played as dramatically as the piece was dark. The work’s ending featured more strong use of the pedal, and a huge clustered chord which gradually centered onto the final bass note.

In a more direct nod to the Baroque, Gubaidulina’s second and final piece called the harpsichord back to the stage, along with a string quintet. “Meditation on the Bach Chorale: ‘Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit’” is, obviously, based in a chorale written by Bach. However, Gubaidulina made sure to leave her stamp on the music in a number of ways. Not only did the piece feature reversed bows, copious tremolandos, and sections of straight noise, but the structure of the piece itself was a departure from Bach’s original composition. Bach would sometimes organize songs around a number which he would derive from the alphanumeric value of a name. For instance, a piece about Bwog (2+23+15+7 = 47) might have 47 variations on one idea. Gubaidulina, for her alphanumeric inspiration, used Bach, Jesus, and Sofia, her first name. I find it a move of supreme overconfidence to put your name up there with Bach and Jesus. Regardless of the composer’s high self-regard, the piece gave the performers an excuse to show off all of the sounds their instruments could make, and left a huge and modern sound for the audience to mull over during the intermission.

When we came back, we were treated to two much more traditional pieces by the old composer. The “Ricercar a 6 from The Musical Offering” was a string sextet Bach composed off of a theme by Frederick the Great. Compared to the pieces before it, it was significantly less dramatic, but still interesting. It was a pleasant fugue which gave me time to admire Brad Lubman’s excellent conducting. His style was smooth most of the time, with a capacity for precision and quickness. He was fast to and away from his motions, with crisp stops in between. When he cut off his ensemble at the end of the Ricercar, it struck me how suddenly all of the sound ceased, something you rarely hear from a chamber ensemble.

The concert ended with Bach’s “Triple Concerto in A minor” for harpsichord, flute, and violin. Behind them was the string quintet from Gubaidulina’s “Meditation.” This time, the harpsichord was placed in the middle of, not behind, the ensemble, to showcase its role as a featured soloist. While it was a concerto grosso, the keyboard asserted itself as the primary solo instrument, earning cadenza space and many featured parts against rhythmic accompaniment from the violin and flute. The first and third movements were played by everyone, while the second was performed only by the soloists, who made music without the conductor’s help. The whole work ended with a generally underwhelming finale, by no fault of the musicians onstage. It was just mellow, and the ending simply arrived, with no more aplomb than any other cadence in the concert. It made the whole concert end more on a note of pleasant music than dramatic thought. For the Miller’s final concert in the academic year, this was an agreeable shift. During finals week, the lack of drama was probably a good thing.