Bach, Telemann, Vivaldi & Zelenka
orchestra of the age of enlightenment

Rachel Podger director, violin
Rachel Nicholls soprano; David Blackadder trumpet

Telemann: Overture (Suite) in E minor for 2 flutes, strings & continuo (Tafelmusik)
Vivaldi: Concerto in D for 2 violins, 2 oboes and bassoon, RV.564a attrib. Pisendel
Bach: Cantata No.51 `Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen'
Zelenka: Hypocondrie
Telemann: Cantata, Ertrage nur joch der Mangel (Harmonische Gottesdienst)
Johann Sebastian Bach: Concerto in D for 3 violins (reconstructed from Concerto in C for 3 harpsichords, BWV.1064)

Queen Elizabeth Hall 27 January 2009

OAE is currently enjoying a marketting triumph, even though their images as photographed do not quite square with what their predominantly elderly audiences at SBC might expect? Concerts with a wide ranging repertoire played on early instruments have enlarged interest in historically informed performance and this baroque concert by the core group, featuring period flutes, oboes and trumpet to great effect as well as the baroque violins of Rachel Podger and Margaret Faultless, confirmed OAE's high place in the movement.

Their always alert playing was of the highest standard, and the personable Rachel Podger, directing balletically 'from the violin' (how does a violinist move that freely without losing contact between bow and strings?) charmed the capacity audience with anecdotes about their recent return from icy Minneapolis and introducing Zelenka's quirky modulations.

Rachel Nicholls was featured in two cantatas, a joyous one by Bach and a nearly equally cheerful one by Telemann about the horrors of eternal doom and the slough of hell's fire and sulphur awaiting the ungodly... A good evening at South Bank Centre.

Peter Grahame Woolf