PBO and soloists present an epic OBF concert

July 3, 2009
Lorin Wilkerson

Northwest Reverb classical music blog

Oregon Bach Festival audiences were treated to a very rare treat on Monday, June 29th at the First United Methodist Church in Portland. The Portland Baroque Orchestra, one of the nation’s premier early music orchestras and a guest ensemble at this year’s festival, presented all six of Bach’s famous Brandenburg Concertos under the sterling direction of Monica Huggett (who did a triple duty as violinist and violist as well.)

These works were composed over a ten-year span while Bach was still a young man, and presented to a music-loving (though ultimately ungrateful) prince, the Margrave of Brandenburg. The represent Bach’s foray into the Italian concerto style, and like so many of his efforts they are uniquely his own and yet stand as one of the crowning achievement of the genre.

Click here to read the full review, presented in order in which they were performed at this concert.