Salish Early Music Festival to Feature Bach on Period Instruments

Tuesday, April 19, 8 p.m., Orcas Adventist Fellowship Church

— from Jeffrey Cohan —

Ingrid Matthews

The Salish Sea Early Music Festival offers a rare opportunity to hear the complete Musical Offering and other chamber music by Johann Sebastian Bach on period instruments with German harpsichordist Hans-Jürgen Schnoor, baroque violinist Ingrid Matthews and baroque flutist Jeffrey Cohan in Bach’s Musical Offering on Tuesday, April 19 at 7:00 PM at Orcas Adventist Fellowship Church at 107 Enchanted Forest Road in Eastsound on Orcas Island.

J.S. Bach walked for two days to hear Dietrich Buxtehude at St. Mary’s Church in Lübeck, where Mr. Schnoor currently is organist and holds one of the most coveted and history-laden positions as keyboardist in all of Europe. Ingrid Matthews founded and directed the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, and Jeffrey Cohan directs the Salish Sea Early Music Festival.

Jeffrey Cohan. Photo: Reed Carlson

The Musical Offering was initiated in 1747 when Frederick the Great, King Frederick II of Prussia, himself a superb flutist, gave to Bach a complicated theme upon which Bach improvised to the astonishment of all present. Within the next few weeks Bach perfected and presented to Frederick a composition which exhibits Bach’s boundless imagination and profound depth of expression in a brilliant set of canons and fugues, and a trio sonata that is without parallel in 18th-century chamber music, all based on this royal theme. The 6-part fugue is the most significant keyboard work ever written according to musicologist Charles Rosen. Also on the program will be two trio sonatas for violin, flute and harpsichord, and the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue for solo harpsichord, all by Johann Sebastian Bach.

The suggested donation will be $15, $20 or $25 (a free will offering). Those 18 and under are free. Please please see www.salishseafestival.org/orcas or call the Orcas Adventist Fellowship Church at (360) 376-6683 for more information.

Hans-Juergen Schnoor. Photo: Reed Carlson

~ Praise for Hans-Juergen Schnoor ~
THE WASHINGTON POST
“German harpsichordist Hans-Juergen Schnoor gave a stunning account of Bach’s monumental “Goldberg Variations”. As Schnoor hurtled through Bach’s contrapuntal labyrinth, the harpsichordist absorbed the audience in the rising emotional tension, culminating in a final burst of keyboard fireworks.”  — Cecelia Porter

MUSIC IN VICTORIA • https://islandnet.com/miv/
The enormous presence of Mr. Schnoor as he covered the entire instrument with his solo statement, creating a universe of sound, was immediately apparent. Schnoor’s heightening intensity of pure invention compelled every hair follicle of attention. The audience was extremely appreciative, yet such was the virtuosity and technical brilliance of Hans Jürgen Schnoor and Jeffrey Cohan, combined with a spell-binding understatement, I couldn’t be quite sure I hadn’t dreamed it all.  — Elizabeth Courtney

The Salish Sea Early Music Festival presents six performances at the Orcas Adventist Fellowship Church this year with three musicians from Germany and others from four states and the Pacific Northwest. The festival has presented countless premiere period instrument performances in modern times of early works, including Seattle’s first ever period instrument Mozart-era orchestra (for Mozart symphonies and concerti in 1999), unpublished chamber music from the court of Louis XIV, and renaissance chamber music with instrumentation that has not been heard for more than three centuries.

UPCOMING on Orcas Island at the Orcas Adventist Fellowship Church in Eastsound:

• On Tuesday, May 10 at 7:00 PM, 2016, Versailles features the music and musicians from the early 18th-century court of Louis XIV with John Lenti on theorbo & baroque guitar, Joanna Blendulf on viola da gamba and Jeffrey Cohan playing a copy of a flute made by one of Louis XIV’s court musicians.

• On Tuesday, June 7 at 7:00 PM, Virtuoso Guitar and Flute presents a sampling of music by the outstanding guitar and flute virtuosos of the early 19th century with guitarist John Schneiderman, and Jeffrey Cohan performing on an 8-keyed flute made in London in 1820.