VCHpresents Organ: Pipe Up! Isaac Lee with Red Dot Baroque

PIPE UP! ISAAC LEE WITH RED DOT BAROQUE

19 MAY 2021, 7:30PM VICTORIA CONCERT HALL SPONSORED BY

PROGRAMME Isaac Lee, organ Red Dot Baroque* Brenda Koh & Gabriel Lee, baroque violins Placida Ho, baroque viola Leslie Tan, baroque cello Edmund Song, baroque double bass Gerald Lim, harpsichord J.S. BACH Sinfonia from Cantata BWV 169 “Gott soll allein mein Herze haben”*

GEORG BÖHM Partita on “Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele”

8 mins

12 mins

J.S. BACH Prelude in D major, BWV 532

5 mins

J.S. BACH Organ Sonata No. 6 in G major, BWV 530 I. Vivace II. Lento

9 mins

C.P.E. BACH Organ Sonata in G minor, Wq. 70/6, H. 87 I. Allegro Moderato

5 mins

JOHANN LUDWIG KREBS Organ Trio in E-flat major, Krebs-WV 443

5 mins

J.S. BACH Sinfonia from Cantata BWV 146 “Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal”*

8 mins

CONCERT DURATION: approximately 1 hour (with no intermission)

ISAAC LEE organ Isaac Lee is adjunct lecturer at Singapore Bible College and organ instructor at the Methodist School of Music. Prior to his return to Singapore, he completed a successful fellowship at Roskilde Cathedral, Denmark, a UNESCO heritage site.

Recent performances include the concluding organ recital for Esplanade’s “A Tapestry of Sacred Music 2021” and a collaborative digital project titled “Organ in the Time of Cholera” under the auspices of a National Arts Council grant.

Embracing his role as a performer and educator, he seeks to excite, educate and entertain audiences through the “Pipe Up!” organ series at Victoria Concert Hall and outreach work for the Singapore Symphony Group. He was also assistant director of Organ Academy Singapore 2019, a reboot of an organ immersion camp in 2005.

Work aside, he enjoys serving as organist at St. Andrew’s Cathedral and Queenstown Lutheran Church.

RED DOT BAROQUE Inspired by the richness of Baroque music and close friendships, Red Dot Baroque (RDB) was formed by a group of Singaporean musicians dedicated to bringing out the essence and spirit of the Baroque on period instruments. Led by Alan Choo, rotating concertmaster of the Grammy Award-winning Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra, RDB has presented numerous critically-acclaimed programmes in Singapore since 2018, and collaborated with guest soloists from The Netherlands for their first international tour to Malaysia in July 2019.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the postponement of RDB’s USA concert tour in June 2020, which would have featured appearances at the Kennedy Center, the Indianapolis Early Music Festival, Apollo’s Fire and more.

Nevertheless, the group stayed busy in Singapore with the production of

four high-quality music videos, the commission of “A Barojak Suite” from composer Phang Kok Jun, vodcasts with the Singapore International Festival of Arts, Reflections Arts Festival and MapleTree Arts in the City, and appearances on Channel NewsAsia, zbNOW and vOilah! 2020.

Since 2021, the group has been Ensemble-in-Residence at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music. Upcoming digital concerts include appearances at the Boston Early Music Festival, Indianapolis Early Music Festival, Singapore International Festival of Arts and VCHpresents Organ Series. For details and updates, please visit www.reddotbaroque.com and the group’s YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Spotify pages!

PROGRAMME NOTES The sheer breath of Bach’s oeuvre makes programming any sort of survey a formidable task. Tonight’s programme serves up some milestone organ works that sums up his life as a student, composer and teacher.

quite a departure from its Calvinistic beginnings, and is subjected to ten variations that run the gamut of keyboard figurations. Here, Böhm introduced Bach to riches of French keyboard music and the chorale partita genre.

J.S. BACH (1685 - 1750) Sinfonia from Cantata BWV 169 “Gott soll allein mein Herze haben”

J.S. BACH Prelude in D major, BWV 532

The two cantatas performed tonight stem from Bach’s third annual cycle of cantatas. It reveals his renewed interest in the obbligato organ. Despite his fearsome reputation as an organist, Bach left us no concerted works for organ and orchestra. The sinfonia, now believed to be a reworking of an earlier concerto, features an ebullient organ solo that dances to the accompaniment of ecstatic strings. The feverish pace at which he composed a new cantata for Sunday service legitimized the selfborrowing.

GEORG BÖHM (1661 – 1733) Partita on “Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele” Carl Philipp Emanuel, J.S. Bach’s most successful son, recounted that his father “loved and studied the works of works of the Lüneburg organist Georg Böhm”.

The partita on “Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele” makes a persuasive argument for the artistic merits of Böhm. The humble Psalm tune is sensuously decorated in all manners of agréments (ornaments);

Bach famously journeyed 400 km on foot to learn from the famed North German organist, Dietrich Buxtehude.

The multi-sectional structure, rhetorical gestures and double-pedal part of Prelude in D major, BWV 532 betray the influence of the North German organ tradition.

J.S. BACH Organ Sonata No. 6 in G major, BWV 530 I. Vivace II. Lento Originally envisioned as didactic material for his eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann, whom he had highest aspirations for, the six organ sonatas have gone on to be staples of the repertoire. The Sonata in G major, BWV 530 is the only sonata with all movements newly composed for the collection and the music is a nod towards the galant. The concise periodicity of the unison opening is striking and the effortless lyricism beguiles the contrapuntal rigors of this work.

C.P.E. BACH (1714 – 1788) Organ Sonata in G minor, Wq. 70/6, H. 87 I. Allegro Moderato C.P.E. Bach reputation was second to none in the latter half of the 18th century.

Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven all revered him. His Sonata in G minor, Wq. 70/6, H. 87 is endlessly inventive and the extreme unpredictability and wide emotional range encapsulates the empfindsamer style.

JOHANN LUDWIG KREBS (1713 – 1780) Organ Trio in E-flat major, Krebs-WV 443 Krebs was a true disciple of Bach and his compositions were often mistaken as that of his teacher. His Trio in E-flat, WV 443 breaks away from the austerity of his larger prelude and fugues; the contrapuntal severities tampered with the genteel leanings of the galant.

J.S. BACH Sinfonia from Cantata BWV 146 “Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal” The sinfonia to “Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal”, BWV 146 is yet another reworking of a lost concerted movement for organ and orchestra. The arresting Vivaldian ritornello coupled with virtuosic keyboard reworking of violinistic bariolage powerfully concludes this concert.

Notes by Isaac Lee

SUPPORTED BY

PATRON SPONSOR