“Violinist Scott Yoo doesn’t exactly gush when describing Johann Sebastian Bach. He does call him ‘the greatest composer of all time,’ ” writes John Anderson in Thursday’s (9/26) Wall Street Journal (subscription required). As host of the new four-part PBS documentary series Now Hear This, Yoo—also conductor of the Mexico City Philharmonic—“presents a pretty solid case—not that Bach was the Almighty, but that there’s something divine in the work…. The musicality is demonstrated with both prepared and impromptu performances by a number of musicians—among them Mr. Yoo; his wife, the flutist Alice Dade; pianist Alice Sara Ott ; and organist Andreas Jacobs, whose demonstration of a Bach triple fugue on a church organ in Köthen, where Bach lived and wrote for four years, is astonishing…. Mr. Yoo and Ms. Dade, who accompanies her husband through most of his travels through Weimar, Leipzig, Köthen and, ultimately, Paris, are genial hosts and great players—as are Hayden Chisholm, an experimental saxophonist who makes jazz out of Prelude 2 in C-minor, and Ms. Ott…. ‘Now Hear This’ … will continue in subsequent weeks with programs on Scarlatti and Handel (a Vivaldi show is already available for streaming).”
Posted September 30, 2019
