Bach in Minneapolis

Seven years ago, some students at the University of Minnesota formed a Bach Society. They persuaded a genial, absentminded, popeyed music professor, Donald Nivison Ferguson, to be their conductor. Anyone able & willing to sing Bach for three hours a week could join. The Bachsters welcomed not only students, but socialites, white-collar workers of Minneapolis and St. Paul, a telephone lineman. Once a year the Bach Society held an "open meeting," free to the public.

Last week the "open meeting" was wide open: a four-night Bach Festival, first of its kind in the Northwest. Bach fans heard an orchestra concert, an organ recital, the Mass in B Minor, the St. John Passion, in the University's big Northrop Memorial Auditorium. If the singers were not yet ready for comparison with such seasoned Bachsters as the Bethlehem, Pa. Choir, they were nevertheless remarkably good.

Donald Ferguson, 57, has been at Minnesota 27 years, is program annotator for the Minneapolis Symphony, author of a widely used textbook, A History of Musi cal Thought. On the podium he conducts with fury, grunting and grimacing while his hair seems to stand on end. Once in a gymnastic passage his baton flew out of his grasp. Once in a difficult passage, Professor Ferguson grew so pleased that he entirely forgot to lead. Neither time did the chorus get out of the groove.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.