A quite terrific Bach/Handel concert in Trinity College Chapel — the Dunedin Consort with the soprano Sophie Bevan.
There’s a very warm review here in the Guardian of the same programme in Glasgow earlier in the week, which writes of Sophie Bevan’s singing: “no artifice, no fuss, a healthy wit, a refreshing kind of virtuosity that’s grounded and almost casual but still totally dazzling.” And how dazzling she was, her voice ringing round the chapel.
The highest points in an evening of high points? I should certainly mention a performance of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, with simply magical playing from the Dunedins’ leader Cecilia Bernardini, making the so-familiar a renewed delight. And the concert ended with Handel’s operatic Gloria with Sophie Bevan in simply superb form, by turns exuberant, poignant, and finally — in Handel’s long playful Amen — infectiously enjoying herself no end.
OK: you couldn’t be there. But if the Dunedins and/or Sophie Bevan come your way, snap up tickets: and meanwhile, the Dunedins have recorded the Brandenburgs, and Sophie Bevan has recorded the Gloria …