19 JANUARY | THURSDAY Bach Cantatas with Masaaki Suzuki MASAAKI SUZUKI conductor / organ RYO TERAKADO concertmaster ZHANG YUCHEN (B.Mus1) violin MASAMITSU SAN’NOMIYA oboe YST VOICE STUDENTS CONSERVATORY CHAMBER ENSEMBLE J.S. BACH (1685 – 1750) Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV1041 I. Allegro moderato II. Andante III. Allegro Assai J.S. BACH Cantata “Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid”, BWV3 I. Chorus (“Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid”) II. Recitative and Chorale (“Wie schwerlich läßt sich Fleisch und Blut”) III. Aria (“Empfind ich Höllenangst und Pein”) IV. Recitative (“Es mag mir Leib und Geist verschmachten”) V. Aria Duetto (“Wenn Sorgen auf mich dringen”) VI. Chorale (“Erhalt mein Herz im Glauben rein”) INTERMISSION 15 mins J.S. BACH Organ Concerto in D minor (from Cantata BWV35) arr. Masaaki Suzuki I. Sinfonia IV. Aria V. Sinfonia J.S. BACH Cantata “Alles nur nach Gottes Willen”, BWV72 I. Chorus (“Alles nur nach Gottes Willen”) II. Recitative and Arioso (“O selger Christ, der allzeit seinen Willen”) III. Recitative (“So glaube nun”) IV. Aria (“Mein Jesus will es tun, er will dein Kreuz versüßen”) V. Chorale (“Was mein Gott will, das g'scheh allzeit”) MASAAKI SUZUKI conductor / organ Since founding Bach Collegium Japan in 1990, Masaaki Suzuki has established himself as a leading authority on the works of Bach. He has remained their Music Director ever since, taking them regularly to major venues and festivals in Europe and the USA and building up an outstanding reputation for the expressive refinement and truth of his performances. In addition to working with renowned period ensembles, such as Collegium Vocale Gent and Philharmonia Baroque, he is invited to conduct repertoire as diverse as Britten, Beethoven, Fauré, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Mozart and Stravinsky, with orchestras such as the Baltimore Symphony, Danish National Radio Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, New York Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, amongst others. This season sees Suzuki debut with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment on a European tour. Suzuki’s impressive discography on the BIS label, featuring all Bach’s major choral works as well as complete works for harpsichord, has brought him many critical plaudits – the Times has written: “it would take an iron bar not to be moved by his crispness, sobriety and spiritual vigour”. 2014 marked the triumphant conclusion of Bach Collegium Japan’s epic recording of the complete Church Cantatas, initiated in 1995 and comprising fifty-five volumes. This major achievement has been recognised with a 2014 ECHO Klassick ‘Editorial Achievement of the Year’ award. In 2010, Suzuki and his ensemble were awarded both a German Record Critics’ Award (Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik) and a Diapason d’Or de l’Année for their recording of the Bach motets, which was also honoured in 2011 with a BBC Music Magazine Award. The ensemble has now embarked upon extending their repertoire with recent releases of Mozart’s Requiem and Mass in C minor; Suzuki recently released a disc of works by Stravinsky with the Tapiola Sinfonietta. Recent highlights with Bach Collegium Japan include a visit to North America performing in cities such as Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, as well as a European tour including a weekend residency at the Barbican Centre, London, return visits to the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, and debut appearances at Dublin’s National Concert Hall, the Vienna Konzerthaus and the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg. Masaaki Suzuki combines his conducting career with his work as organist and harpsichordist. Born in Kobe, he graduated from the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music with a degree in composition and organ performance, and went on to study harpsichord and organ at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam under Ton Koopman and Piet Kee. Founder and Professor Emeritus of the early music department at the Tokyo University of the Arts, he was on the choral conducting faculty at the Yale School of Music and Yale Institute of Sacred Music from 2009 until 2013, where he remains affiliated as the principal guest conductor of Yale Schola Cantorum. Regularly collaborating with Juilliard Historical Performance, this season sees them on a tour of New Zealand. In 2012 Suzuki was awarded with the Leipzig Bach Medal and in 2013 the Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize. In April 2001, he was decorated with ‘Das Verdienstkreuz am Bande des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik’ from Germany. For information on Bach Collegium Japan, please visit: bachcollegiumjapan.org RYO TERAKADO concertmaster Born 1961 in Santa-Curz, Bolivia, Ryo Terakado started playing the violin at age 4 after he returned to Japan. He won the 2nd prize in the all Japan Youth Musical Competition when he was 14 years old. He studied violin, chamber music and conducting at the Toho Gakuen School of Music. After graduating, he was immediately invited as concertmaster of The Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, where he served for 2 years. His interest in baroque music already started before: When he was 19, he started to play baroque violin by himself. Some years later, he founded a baroque ensemble “Concert Spirituel”, together with Masahiro Arita (Flute), who influenced him greatly, and Hidemi Suzuki (cello). In 1985, he came to the Netherlands to study the baroque violin at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague under the guidance of Sigiswald Kuijken. In 1989, he received a soloist diploma. Since 1987 he has played with many Baroque orchestras in Europe and Japan as a concertmaster, such as Les Arts Florissants (William Christie), La Chapelle Royale (Philippe Herrewege), Collegium Vocale Gent (Philippe Herrewege), Tokyo Bach Mozart Orchestra (Masahiro Arita), etc. He was particularly known as the concertmaster of La Petite Bande (Sigiswald Kuijken) and Bach Collegium (Masaaki Suzuki) Japan. With the above-mentioned groups, he toured all over the world as a soloist in major halls such as Carnegie Hall. His conducting debut was at the Hokutopia International Music Festival in Tokyo. Since then, he has conducted operas by Monteverdi, Purcell, Rameau, Gluck, Haydn and W.A. Mozart, including Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Rameau’s Pigmarion, and Rebel’s Les Elemens, amongst others. Currently he teaches at The Hague Royal Conservatory and as a specially appointed professor at the Toho Gakuen Music School in Japan. MASAMITSU SAN’NOMIYA oboe A graduate of the Musashino College of Music, Masamitsu started his professional career while he was in school. In 1996, he founded a chamber ensemble, “La Fontaine”, and the ensemble won the first prize at the International Competition for Early Music YAMANASHI and the second prize at the International Competition Musica Antiqua Bruges in 2000. In 1996, Masamitsu joined Bach Collegium Japan (BCJ), founded by Masaaki Suzuki and became the principal oboe player of the BCJ. Masamitsu features as a soloist on many CD recordings. Masamitsu’s discography includes his first solo album CD, “Virtuoso Oboe Music” (2003), “Le Hautbois Romantique a Paris” (2014) and J. S. Bach’s sacred cantata series with BCJ (1995- 2013). Masamitsu is active in music education and is currently a lecturer at the early music department of the Tokyo University of the Arts. ZHANG YUCHEN (B.Mus1) violin Born in April 1998, Zhang Yuchen began studying the violin at the age of 5. He was awarded the Gold medal in the 11th and 12th Children’s Violin Competition in Guangdong Province, and the Gold award at the National Solo Violin Show in Beijing. In 2010, he entered the Middle School Affiliated to Shanghai Conservatory of Music and studied with Mrs. Qinglin Zhu, Prof. Shisheng Zheng and Mr. Yang Song. During his studies at the Middle School, he participated in many performances and held solo concerts. He also performed as a soloist with the Shanghai Chamber Orchestra at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center. As a member of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music Junior High School Symphony Orchestra, he was invited to attend the Festival Internacional de Música y Danza de Granada in Spain in July 2015. He has also been selected to participate in masterclasses by violin virtuosi Qian Zhou, Hu Kun, Ning Feng, Andres Cardenes, and Midori. In 2016, he was admitted to the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore, under the tutelage of Prof. Qian Zhou. Programme Notes Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750) Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV1041 I. Allegro moderato II. Andante III. Allegro Assai Having started with the cantatas, the Bach-Gesellschaft never got any further with its issuing and cataloguing of all Bach’s works; indeed, it stopped at the number 190. It was left to Wolfgang Schmeider to continue and complete the work, beginning his Bach- Werke-Verzeichnis in the 1930s but not completing in until 1950 (two Second World War bombing raids of Frankfurt and Leipzig managing to destroy the only two manuscripts and so forcing a complete re-start on this gargantuan project). Having accepted the Bach-Gesellschaft numbering for the cantatas, Schmeider continued the idea of genre - rather than chronological - grouping in his BWV catalogue. This system may make for easy identification of works within a single genre, but does not take into account the fact that scholarship may question the originality or authenticity of some works and discover hitherto unknown ones which cannot then be properly integrated into the catalogue. With his revision in the 1970s, Schmeider introduced a complicated system of arrow and multiple numbers in an attempt to overcome this. Nowhere is the shortcomings of Schmeider’s numbering system more clearly revealed than in the provision for concertos. In 1950 Schmeider identified 25 extant concertos by Bach and allocated them the numbers BWV1041-1065. Bach certainly wrote many more than that and with Bach’s habit of re-working earlier music to suit changing performing situations, it becomes increasingly difficult to work out just how many true concertos Bach did write, or, indeed, when he originally wrote them.