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In a new departure, we focused an entire festival on one family of instruments – early keyboards – and, in particular, the harpsichord. Some of the most stunning pieces of music in the entire keyboard repertoire were written not for early keyboards, and Bach was at the centre of this activity.

The festival opened on Saturday 28 October 2006 at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts with a pioneer in the performance of Baroque and Classical music on period instruments. Trevor Pinnock, CBE, is known worldwide as a harpsichordist, conductor and chamber musician. The works of three outstanding north European keyboard players made up his programme: Sweelink, Froberger and J. S. Bach.

It was a particular pleasure last year to host the UK début of a number of extremely talented French artists. On 3 November the youngest of these, Benjamin Alard, enthralled the audience at the Birmingham and Midland Institute’s Lyttelton Theatre with a dazzling performance of Bach’s ‘Goldberg’ Variations. In 2004 Benjamin was awarded first prize at the International Harpsichord Competition in Bruges. Since then he has performed regularly in the most famous early music festivals all over Europe.

Benjamin was joined in the following two days by harpsichord soloists Elizabeth Joyé, François Guerrier, Christine Whiffin and the string quartet ‘Ensemble La Canzona’. Together, in two concerts at the CBSO Centre on 4 and 5 November, they enticed audiences with a rare opportunity to hear Bach’s entire corpus of concertos for harpsichord and strings: the six solo concertos and, in addition, all the concertos for two, three and four harpsichords. The timing of these concerts, combined with the sparkling dexterity and excitement of their playing, was truly a spectacle of keyboard fireworks!

The final concert, staged at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, was playfully entitled ‘Haydn Seek with Mozart and Others’ and featured compositions by Haydn, Mozart and some of their London contemporaries. The delicate fortepiano playing of Carole Cerasi and clear vocal phrasing of Julia Gooding (soprano) offered the audience a glimpse of Mozart’s influence on the developing musical tastes of Georgian London.

The management board of the Birmingham Early Music Festival continues to demonstrate its commitment to education by supporting a series of projects involving primary school pupils from across the city. Once again, we were able to build on the links forged over recent years with primary schools in Handsworth, and Winson Green.

The Birmingham Early Music Festival in 2006 has once again achieved its aim of bringing extremely high calibre period musicians to audiences in Birmingham. This has been made possible by the generosity of the Barber Trust, Arts Council England (West Midlands), Early Music Network, Cornwall Street Chambers and our Festival Friends and donors. We are deeply indebted to them all.

Patrick Ryan
Festival Administrator

Last updated: 1 August 2007
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