ANYONE who has ever had a little ‘punt’ on horse racing will be familiar with, and vouch for, the truth of the old saying ‘horses for courses”. There have been thousands of examples over the years of horses whose performances are a stone or more better on certain courses, and top class trainers who know exactly how to take advantage of this, and where to run their charges to get the best performances out of them.

Looking at the programme that artistic director Amelia Freedman and her team arranged for this year’s Bach festival, you would describe their work as being on a par with that of any champion trainer.

With the Assembly Rooms for the moment out of commission, Bath Abbey, St Mary’s Church Bathwick and the Guildhall were selected to host two concerts apiece, each one with the right ambience to ideally show off the skills of the musicians and singers booked for the particular performance.

The festival was bookended by Olivier Latry, titular organist at Paris’s Notre Dame cathedral, and The English Concert Choir and Orchestra, both taking advantage of the majestic setting of Bath Abbey. For the opening concert, it was a rare treat for lovers of organ music to hear such a distinguished master as Latry playing works by Marchand, Couperin and J S Bach- as well as his own compositions. The enthusiastic, appreciative response that he received was mirrored at the festival’s final concert, after The English Concert Choir and Orchestra, led by Kristian Bezuidenhout from the harpsichord, completed their heartfelt presentation of J S Bach’s Mass in B minor. A visitor from Canada who shared the experience with me, having discovered the concert at the last moment, declared it one of the highlights of her UK tour.

The elegant setting of the Guildhall obviously could not have staged those two concerts, but by the same measure, the two it did host, A Shakespeare Miscellany, with actor Dickon Tyrrell, lutenist Elizabeth Kenny and countertenor Robin Blaze, combining their talents, and one of the festival’s strongest supporters, cellist Adrian Brendel, with harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, giving performances which would have been diluted in the vast space of the Abbey, but fitted perfectly in the intimacy of the Guildhall.

Rachael Podger used the assets of St Mary’s Bathwick, as skillfully as she brought her talents as a violinist to bear on Bach’s violin concerto in A minor and Concerto for Two Violins. In between, she took her position as director of the exuberant, mainly young, group of players from Brecon Baroque in a delightfully fresh playing of Vivaldi’s La Stravaganza violin concerto.

The same venue had earlier served Florilgium and mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston admirably as they skillfully, to the pleasure of an appreciative audience, combined the music of father JS Bach, son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and godfather Georg Philipp Telemann. These were six concerts in just four days, providing a treat for lovers of early music, all enhanced by being presented in settings that allowed them to be displayed to their very best advantage.

When Amelia Freedman and her team finalise the programme for the Bach Fest’s sister ship, The Mozart Fest, which comes in the autumn, it will once again be horses for courses, with each top-quality individual and group of musicians and singers allocated an ideal venue to present their musical goodies.

GRP

Photograph of Olivier Latry by Deyan Parouchev