I performed with the Gabrieli Consort & Players, directed by Paul McCreesh, at London’s Wigmore Hall on Friday 27th May 2022. A subsequent performance of the same programme took place at Lady St. Mary’s Church in Wareham the following day. I last performed at Wigmore Hall with this group just last month, and I had previously performed at the Purbeck Art Weeks festival in Dorset with I Fagiolini in 2017.

The programme began with the opening Sinfonia from Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir (BWV 29), which featured William Whitehead (organ). The first half of the programme continued with Bach’s Mass in A (BWV 234), which featured the mesmerising flute playing of Marta Goncalves and Eva Caballero, and the soloists Mary Bevan, Tim Mead, Thomas Walker (tenor) & Malachy Frame (bass).

After an interval the programme continued with a Sinfonia in D (BWV 1045) which featured the leader Catherine Martin (violin). After this, the tutti forces returned to the stage to perform Bach’s Ascension Oratorio, Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen (BWV 11).

It was a pleasure to play this music on trumpets without finger holes, and the programme included quite a few harmonically interesting chords for us: the written F major triads in BWV 29 include two of the most naturally dissonant notes in the harmonic series. I played third trumpet, alongside Jean-François Madeuf and Katie Hodges, with Nick Cowling on timpani.

In Purbeck, the performance ended with a rendition of Jesu, bleibet meine Freude from BWV 147—a favourite of the departing and long-serving director of the Purbeck Art Weeks festival. Jean-François and I sang with the one voice per part choir.