Bach and Before

J. S. Bach’s music has influenced generations of classical and pop musicians. But whose music did Bach listen to? “Bach and Before,” the 2022 Bach Week Festival’s free season-opener concert, aims to shed light on that subject with a performance by a chamber ensemble of accomplished period-instrument players. Curated by early music specialist Jason J. Moy, Bach Week’s principal organist and harpsichordist, it’s the festival’s first all-period-instrument mainstage concert, as well as the festival’s first-ever event in Ravenswood. “This program explores the musical riches of the German “Stylus Phantasticus” with works by relatively unknown composers who inspired and influenced the young J. S. Bach,” Moy says. The concert will open with J. S. Bach’s “An Wasserflüssen Babylon,” BWV 653, for solo organ, followed by Dieterich Buxtehude’s Trio Sonata in C Major, BuxWV 266; Nicolaus Adam Strungk’s Contrapunct sopra la Bassigaylos d’Altr/ “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern”; Georg Böhm’s Variations on “Wer nur den Liebe Gott lässt walten”; Johann Adam Reincken’s Sonata No. 1 in A Minor from “Hortus Musicus”; Buxtehude’s Trio Sonata in B-flat Major, BuxWV 255; and Johann Pachelbel’s Partie IV, from “Musicalische Ergötzung.” Artists include Emi Tanabe, baroque violin; Wendy Benner, baroque violin; Anna Steinhoff, viola da gamba; Jerry Fuller, violone; Moy on harpsichord; and Bach Week’s music director Richard Webster on organ. Webster notes that since Bach Week’s founding, which predates the period-instrument movement, the festival has emphasized performances on modern orchestral instruments, as does, for example, Chicago’s Music of the Baroque. “Jason Moy’s program offers an exciting new twist to the festival,” Webster says. “The audience will experience a style of Baroque music with an imaginative, freewheeling, improvisatory character, played in a historically authentic manner.” Moy is artistic director of Ars Musica Chicago and a faculty member at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University and at DePaul University School of Music, where he is the inaugural recipient of the Monsignor Kenneth J. Velo Endowed Distinguished Professorship. The free concert is funded through a generous donation from Bob and Margaret McCamant.