Kate Semmens, soprano & Steven Devine, harpsichord. Weymouth Sunday Concerts, 10 March 2019
When I think of the Notebooks of Anna Magdalena Bach, I imagine a weighty tome, leather bound, filled with album leaves of handwritten music on thick creamy vellum.
Anna Magdalena was the second Mrs Bach and was her husband’s helpmeet, looking after his children and assisting in copying out music part for performance. The two surviving collections of music which have come to be called Anna Magdalena’s Notebooks contain works for keyboard and voice, written by her husband and others, used for teaching and for entertainment. The works are small-scale and domestic and offer an intriguing glimpse into the home life of the Bach family: the children studying their keyboard and composition techniques and the entire family enjoying making music together. Interleaved with verse songs, polonaises and minuets are early workings of pieces which Bach later turned into works regarded today as some of the finest in the entire classical canon, including the Aria which opens the Goldberg Variations and Schlummert ein which was developed into Cantata 82.
Kate Semmens and Steven Devine presented a charming programme of works for voice and keyboard drawn from the Notebooks of Anna Magdalena. Performing on an instrument by Colin Booth, copied from a 1710 harpsichord made near where Bach lived, Steven brought vibrancy and elegance to the music, and for me, someone normally to be found at piano concerts, it was refreshing and instructive to hear a harpsichordist’s approach to aspects such as voicing and articulation. Despite the dynamic limitations of the instrument, Steven brought richness of tone and texture, most keenly felt in an uplifting performance of the Italian Concerto BWV 971.
Kate’s soprano voice is warm, expressive and colourful with clear diction and fine sense of drama and contrast. There was a lovely sense of synergy and understanding between these two musicians which highlighted the intimacy of the music, and both musicians introduced the works on the programme, engagingly setting them in context. This was a intriguing insight into the home life of JS and AM Bach and a delightful afternoon of fine music, beautifully presented.
Weymouth Sunday Concerts are presented by Weymouth Music Club. Now in its 74th season, the club hosts six concerts per year on Sunday afternoons at Weymouth Bay Methodist Church. Further information
The Cross-Eyed Pianist 
We are very lucky to have musicians of this calibre coming to Weymouth to play for us.