Review

ANDREW JOHNSTONEreviews IBO/Cooper at the National Gallery, Dublin

This programme by the Irish Baroque Orchestra under guest director Gary Cooper took several angles on Bach’s habit of plundering his own and other composers’ concertos.

None of Bach’s 14 harpsichord concertos can confidently be said to have been devised for that instrument. The Concerto BWV 1057 for two recorders and harpsichord furnished the most obvious example of self- borrowing, being a revision of the fourth of the celebrated Brandenburg set.

Eight of the concertos are all that remains of their presumed original versions. One such was BWV 1052 for solo harpsichord, which is believed to have started life as a concerto for solo violin.

The reconstruction of a lost prototype was illustrated by Wilfried Fischer’s transcription of the Double Harpsichord Concerto BWV 1060.

Few would question his claim that Bach conceived this work for violin and oboe.

A further item returning to its roots was Vivaldi’s Concerto Op 3 No 10 for four violins, which owes perhaps too much of its fame to Bach’s extravagant reworking for four harpsichords.

Though the IBO’s artistic director, Monica Huggett, was not actually participating, Cooper’s sympathy with her stylistic ethos was evident in the generally flamboyant phrasing, the occasional hyperbolic warping of the tempo, and a persistent delight in the unexpected.

The soloists in the Vivaldi – Sophie Barber, Hannah Tibell, Clodagh Vedres and leader Claire Duff – aimed unashamedly at diversity of interpretation. In the double concerto, the discourse between Duff and oboist Andreas Helm was more unified, albeit weighted somewhat in Helm’s favour.

As solo harpsichordist, Cooper gave emphatic accounts of his two concertos, both of which suffered from the instrument’s tendency to slip out of tune. The first movement of BWV 1057, enhanced by graceful contributions from Helm and Hannah McLaughlin on recorders, proved his finest hour.