Review: The Bach Society Illuminates the Sounds of the Season

In real estate, we are told, location is everything. During the Bach Society’s annual Christmas Candlelight Concert at Powell Hall on December 23rd, it occurred to me that the same can often be true of a performing arts event. Some seats are better than others, especially when there’s a strong visual component to the performance.

The Bach Society at Powell Hall

That’s not usually a major issue for classical concerts, but the Bach Society’s annual event isn’t like most. That’s primarily because of the candlelight procession that opens the second half. The lights dim and the members of the Bach Society walk down the aisles singing, each with an electric candle. If you're lucky enough to be sitting downstairs in the orchestra section, you're soon surrounded by singers—some carrying the melody, some the harmony, enveloping you in a constantly changing kaleidoscope of sound. It’s unforgettable.

This year, though, I was late in requesting tickets, so we were in what is now called the Mid Balcony. From up there, the chorus and orchestra still sounded fine, but the surround-sound experience of the candlelight procession was mixed down to stereo, and the procession itself wasn’t visible. That meant that over half of the audience at this sold-out concert missed what has become the event’s trademark.

That said, this first Candlelight Concert in the new Powell Hall did not lack for fine musicianship and holiday cheer. Bach Society Music Director and Conductor A. Dennis Sparger led the society’s orchestra and chorus with his usual authority, making the evening of holiday sounds old and new a fitting tribute to mark the Bach Society’s 85^th birthday.

Usually dedicated to more serious/traditional classical works, the first half of this year’s event was taken up almost entirely with a brightly celebratory performance of the 1990 Magnificat by Sir John Rutter (b. 1945). A prolific composer of choral music—including popular Christmas tunes such as “The Shepherd’s Pipe Carol,” “Angels’ Carol,”  and “Donkey Carol”—Rutter is one of what was, until fairly recently, a small number of contemporary composers writing in an accessible, audience friendly style. As Sparger writes in his program notes, the composer’s “infectious melodies, along with colorful harmonies and brilliant orchestrations…have made Rutter a favorite in churches, schools and concert halls around the world.”

The text of the Magnificat, per the composer’s web site, is “based on the prayer ascribed by St Luke [Luke I:46-55] to the Virgin Mary on learning that she was to give birth to Christ, [and] is extended by the interpolation of Marian prayers and poems chosen by the composer to create a celebratory work reminiscent of outdoor processions in honour of the Virgin.” In notes for a Naxos recording of the work, Rutter added that “it is mainly in the sunny southern countries—Spain, Mexico, Puerto Rico—that Mary is most celebrated and enjoyed. This led me to conceive the music as a bright Latin-flavoured fiesta.”

Scored for orchestra, chorus, and soprano solo, the Magnificat covers a wide range of moods, from the exuberant first movement (“Magnificat anima mea Dominum”) with its lively Latin-American percussion to the majestic and celebratory final movement (“Gloria Patri”), complete with a fervent Marian Antiphon in a translation by Ron Jeffers. The second movement, “Of a Rose, a Lovely Rose,” is a tranquil setting of an anonymous 15^th-century English poem comparing Mary to a rose. The fugal fifth movement, “Fecit potentiam in brachio suo” (“He has shown strength with His arm”), is a dramatic depiction of divine might reminiscent of Vaughan Williams—a sharp contrast with the rocking, near-lullaby “Esurientes implevit bonis” (“The hungry He has filled with good things”) that follows.

Under Sparger’s sympathetic direction, the Bach Society Orchestra and Chorus ensured that all those moods and colors came through with superb clarity.  The occasional cracked note in the horns and brasses notwithstanding, this was quite a solid reading and created the proper festive spirit.

Emily Birsan

Soprano Emily Birsan, who was the soloist the last time the Bach Society presented the Magnificat in 2016, brought a pure and precise tone and good stage presence to her performance. The part calls for a wide vocal range, dipping into the low end of the soprano tessitura in “Esurientes,” but Birsan sounded entirely comfortable with it.

Birsan returned in the second half of the concert for an impressively virtuosic “Laudamus Te” from Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor, K. 427. The composer wrote this and other soprano solos in the Mass with the coloratura voice of his future wife, Constanze Weber, in mind, so a large range and vocal flexibility are called for. Birsan is a lyric soprano rather than a coloratura per se, but she sounded very much on top of her game in the piece.

Other highlights of the evening included a pair of inventive arrangements by Texas-based composer/arranger Tyler Scott Davis of the classic carols “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”  and “Joy to the World.” The former wrapped the 15^th-century tune in a shimmering, modernist haze while the latter had an appropriately triumphal feel that placed the shining brass section in the foreground. The Latin-American sound of “Angels We Have Heard on High” (by Dr. Barlow Bradford of the University of Utah) was a pleasant surprise and kept percussionists Erin Elstner and Paul Brumleve busy with multiple instruments, including marimba, gourd, wood block, and bongos.

The program included a recurring favorite, A Musicological Journey through the 12 Days of Christmas by contemporary American composer Craig Courtney. In this witty arrangement of the popular Christmas memory challenge, each verse is orchestrated in the style of a different composer and/or musical era. As a bonus, most of the arrangements also include a nod to the lyrics.

So, for example, the “seven swans a-swimming” uses the “Swan” theme from Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals, the “eleven pipers piping” is set to the “Dance of the Mirlitons” (toy flutes) from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, the “eight maids a-milking” become the eight Valkyries from Wagner’s Die Walküre, and the “twelve drummers drumming” are setting the beat for Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever. The program lists only the century and country of inspiration for each verse (e.g., “19th-century France” for Saint-Saëns), leaving it to listeners to fill in the blanks. Judging from the laughter, the audience had no difficulty doing so. I’m not sure the visual jokes (mostly chorus members dancing in period costumes) added anything, but neither did they detract.

Now that they are back in Powell Hall, my hope is that the Bach Society can make better use of the space in the future. Use of the hall’s projected text capabilities, for example, would have been helpful during the Magnificat, as would an awareness of the fact that placing soloists too far down stage center makes them invisible to some of the balcony seats.

The Bach Society’s 2026 season continues with Parts II and III of Handel’s Messiah in March, Bach’s Magnificat in May, and the 2026 Bach Festival at multiple locations this spring. More information is available at the Bach Society web site.