Renaissance

Gathered tightly in the pews and galleries of a Dutch church in thrifty eastern Pennsylvania, a group of disciples harkened steadfastly -- not disciples of steel nor of any god, but of Johann Sebastian Bach, musician immortal. Musingly reminiscent of medieval Leipzic with Bach playing out his enrapturing arias to the misty Gothic arches of some dim cathedral, sadly reminiscent of the early years of sparse recognition, analogously reminiscent of later days, when devotees trekked across long roads to hear their master's playing, painfully reminiscent when modern renditions betrayed the ancient, were the 1200 who assembled in Bethlehem to attend the annual Bach festival there celebrated.

Director Fred Wolle had chosen for his program a series of cantatas, a motet, the annual performance of the most difficult, most magnificent B Minor Mass.

Yet critics who have attended many a Bach Festival spoke reverently of the spirit that presided, of the atmosphere that pervaded, of the devotion of the chorus and its leader. They dared pick faults with the ensemble playing of the men imported from the Philadelphia Symphony, the work of the soloists, hinted that people who became pilgrims and traveled a long distance and then paid three dollars for each of the four concerts had a right to expect better things.

The Director was praised for his revivals, an extremely trying business with limited resources, for he is expressing a neglected urge in American appetites, successfully inaugurating a renaissance.