Ed Parmentier on music for the Feb 5-6 concert

These are challenging times for orchestras across the country and around the world. Fortunately the JSO is headed in a different direction. The third program for the orchestra's 61st season features masterpieces of the 18th Century, Bach and Handel, of course, as well as Hotteterra.

As our guest conductor and keyboard artist, Ed Parmentier describes the music, "The Bach Suite makes me think of a challenging steeplechase where the horses and their riders negotiate, elegantly and effortlessly, the hurdles and twists and turns of the course. The Handel concerto is a showcase for the prestidigitation of the organist, with bubbly themes in the outer movements and a haunting, touching theme whispered in the strings in the middle movement. The Bach g-minor harpsichord concerto is sturdy and passionate, and its romantic and emotional middle movement is Bach's answer to the Handel middle movement. The Brandenburg is Bach at his most congenial, full of good nature and conversation among the soloists, while the orchestra banters in and out with the theme in the outer movements. The harpsichord cadenza is a masterpiece of composition, re-using material from earlier in the movement but elongating and intensifying that material."