10th August 2003, UK, London, Royal Albert Hall, BBC Proms, Prom 35

Bach, Magnificat

(...) Prom 35 saw Paul Goodwin and the Academy of Ancient Music attempt to persuade a near-capacity audience that Biber's Missa Bruxellensis was nearly as interesting as his Mystery Sonatas. No, they didn't quite manage it but they did at least prove that the Missa Bruxellensis is both livelier and more succinct than the Missa Salisburgensis.

With trumpets, sackbutts, kettle drums and cornetts arranged in two choirs at the top of the stage, two large mixed-voice choirs on either side, a pool of delicious strings, keyboard and plucked continuo in the centre and eight soloists, this lavish account of Biber's later setting was all the more impressive for its steady mellowness and elegant shape. But early music is notoriously tricky in the Albert Hall. Groups of two to five instruments can carry more clearly than 50, and this was most apparent in the fifth sonata from Muffat's Armonico Tributo. The tutti sound was lovely - indeed, AAM are currently streets ahead of their competitors in this respect - but listening to it there was like looking at a rosebud through the wrong end of a telescope. Only in the Passagaglia did it clarify, as the ripieno refrains for oboes and flutes emerged. But Goodwin's Bach Magnificat was a vigorous and enjoyable affair; scarcely rocked by an unclear cue in the Gloria and notable for Michael Chance and Rufus Müller's ravishing Et misericordiae and oboist Alex Bellamy's grave obbligato solo in Quia respexit. The most persuasive large-scale Bach this one-to-a-part fanatic has heard in a long while: scintillatingly sung by the choir and beautifully played by the orchestra.

Anna Picard

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/reviews/story.jsp?story=552182