By Robin McKee Williams
On Sunday afternoon we heard Bach’s, St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244, directed by Maestro Bruno Weill in his farewell season with the Carmel Bach Festival at Sunset Center in Carmel. We heard many fine moments from the orchestra, chorale, youth chorale, and soloists — so many details were beautifully calculated by the Maestro to accentuate the dramatic and musical events of this great masterpiece. Bach’s use of texture, melody, chromaticism, harmony, dissonance, modalities, orchestration, double chorus and instrumental writing were precisely controlled in this performance, and the placement of tempi, phrasing and dynamics were communicated to each musician in a way that encouraged them to perform at their very best. That we have a Bach Festival at all is a testament to how people continue to be deeply moved by the intellectual and spiritual, stimulation his music inspires.
