Music / Canberra Bach Ensemble. At St Christopher’s Cathedral, Manuka, April 19. Reviewed by GRAHAM McDONALD.

IN 2016 I reviewed the Canberra Bach Ensemble performing two entire Bach cantatas in St Christopher’s which was most enthusiastically received by the audience that night.

The ensemble, under the direction of founder Andrew Koll, was then emerging from a hiatus of 16 years producing several concerts of Bach choral music in 2018 and 2019. Covid, of course, got in the way of such music making, and this concert marked a second return, being promoted as a fundraiser to support future concerts and to focus on finding the money to take the ensemble to BachFest in Leipzig, Germany next year.

This concert involved a choir of 24 singers and a small baroque orchestra of 10 musicians who came and went depending on the work being performed. The program started with a choral work from one of JS Bach’s earlier cantatas before nine short excerpts from various other cantatas and masses performed variously by soloists soprano Greta Claringbould, alto Maartje Sevenster and bass Andrew Fysh, all well-known singers in the local musical community.

They worked as soloists, in duos and finally as a trio. The voices of Claringbould and Sevenster work especially well together as they have demonstrated often over the years and are always a delight.

The instrumental accompaniment was anchored by Clara Teniswood’s cello and Anthony Smith on the organ, with various other strings and woodwinds used at various times all playing well and accurately.

The choir returned for three works by German baroque composers other than Bach, two by Heinrich Schultz and one by Andreas Hammerschmidt, which was the highlight of the concert.

What was missing was any explanation of why these particular works were being performed or who or what the Canberra Bach Ensemble actually is, apart from having Andrew Koll as director.

It was an oddly programmed concert, with the choir singing in the opening work and then disappearing for an hour while the soloists did their various arias. The audience was polite, without being overly enthusiastic. Of course, the absolutely vile acoustics of St Christopher’s did not help in engaging the audience with the sound rising from the musicians and promptly disappearing into dead air. The cathedral really is a most frustrating venue for a concert like this.