Music review: Bach Keyboard Concertos 5, St Cecilia's Hall, Edinburgh

Possibly, for a concerto soloist, the only thing worse than breaking your glasses just before heading to the platform, is finding out that the glue used to fix them hasn’t worked.
Bach Keyboard Concertos 5, St Cecilia's HallBach Keyboard Concertos 5, St Cecilia's Hall
Bach Keyboard Concertos 5, St Cecilia's Hall

Bach Keyboard Concertos 5, St Cecilia's Hall, Edinburgh * * * *

Even in the face of such adversity, the show went on at St Cecilia’s Hall on Tuesday with harpsichordist Richard Egarr valiantly leading instrumentalists of the Dunedin Consort from the solo seat in Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in E major.

Unsurprisingly a bit unsettled to start, with balance not always allowing the timbre of the harpsichord to break through, the concerto was nonetheless cheerful, moving with a swing to its final Allegro, and the tinkliness of the harpsichord in the central Siciliano like lacework transformed into sound.

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Fellow early keyboard specialist Diego Ares brought distinctive clarity to the Toccata in D major, its final fugue like of a cantering horse in the firmness of its rhythmic pacing. Using both of the 18th century Pascal Taskin instruments on stage, Egarr and Ares came together for an fine performance of the Double Concerto in C minor, a later transcription of Bach’s well-known double concerto originally written for two violins.

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