Butty Bach: High Spirits from John Butt and the OAE

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (left), John Butt (centre), Choir of the Age of Enlightenment (right)
Photo credit: BBC

The B Minor Mass. Nobody quite knows why Bach wrote it, its length making it completely inappropriate for a liturgical setting, Catholic or Lutheran, yet the music itself stands as a beautiful and deeply affecting spiritual experience in the concert hall. Such is its popularity that it was a full house which greeted John Butt, Director of the Orchestra and Choir of the Age of Enlightenment as he came onto the Proms stage to conduct them.

Butt chose a stage layout that could be best described as interesting. With a division of the forces, the instrumentalists and choir were split from one another, taking opposite sides of the stage. Of course, even the suggestion of this being a replication of a liturgical setting would certainly not be 'historically informed'! Sadly, in a work where interplay between soloists, choir, and orchestra is so vital, including Bach's continuo and obbligato parts, intelligibility for all those that were not standing where John Butt was conducting suffered at key moments, notably with the woodwind soloists, with the four flutes relegated to the extreme left of the stage, whose fine work in the obbligato to the Domine Deus could not be properly appreciated.

However, OAE soloists have to be credited with fine work throughout the evening, particularly the three trumpeters, distinguishing themselves with precise technicality and thoroughly sensitive playing in the Gloria which left me wishing that I, in order to hear more of them, was on the other side of the gallery, behind the singers, not the orchestra! Perhaps it was better on radio...

Butt conducted with constant pace and drive (not something unwelcome when standing as a prommer!), qualities certainly present in the 50-strong choir, rather large for 'Historically Informed Performance' Bach (though just the right size for the Albert Hall). However, once again it was the staging which led them to come off with such overwhelming strength to feel almost old-school. Still, over-exposure at times could be forgiven for the moments of sensitive beauty which were the stand-out moments of the evening; the change of mood into the dark Adagio in the Et exspecto resurecti was superbly controlled by Butt, with tense lyric lines held stunningly by the choir, morphing into a transformational, boundless joy which carried into an exuberant and exciting Sanctus. 

The Albert Hall acoustic is notoriously devilish for singers, and indeed, sopranos Mary Bevan and Rachel Dedmond, as well as bass Matthew Brook performed with mixed results in the cavernous hall, not helped by Bach's 'fiddly' vocal parts! However the countertenor Iestyn Davies impressed in a stand-out performance, with a penetratingly clear voice which seemed to embrace and coax the whole hall during his delivery of a simply heavenly Agnus dei. A fine and subtle Benedictus came from tenor Guy Cutting, and by the time of the closing Dona Nobis Pacem, all were left in no doubt that despite minor hiccups and inconsistencies, the drive and excitement of the OAE to play and sing one of the greatest works in the repertoire was to be grateful for.