Washington Classical Review

T. Herbert Dimmock conducted Bach in Baltimore Sunday afternoon at Church of the Redeemer. Photo: Kayleigh Sprouse

T. Herbert Dimmock founded Bach in Baltimore in 1988, after leading the Handel Choir of Baltimore for over a decade. 

Bach in Baltimore billed a concert Sunday afternoon, heard at Baltimore’s Church of the Redeemer, as Dimmock’s last as music director. Yet, as music director emeritus, he will conduct most of next season’s concerts while the organization searches for his replacement. A slate of four candidates, to be announced in July, will each conduct one of next season’s thirteen concerts.

Dimmock’s conducting style and the sound of his choir and orchestra all felt old-school in sensibility. The choir, augmented in this concert by members of the Anne Arundel Community College Choir, numbered somewhere between a chamber chorus and a large chorale in size. In the joyous runs of “For unto us a child is born” from Handel’s Messiah, they were not always together, but their “Hallelujah” chorus had a forthright sound and crisp articulation.

The program, a sort of greatest hits of the baroque, featured Dimmock’s favorite pieces, about evenly divided between Bach and Handel. The choir gave the latter’s Zadok the Priest a dignified grandeur, although the tempo of the “God Save the King” section felt a little too slow and officious. A bright trumpet fanfare opened “O, Lord in Thee have I trusted” from Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum, with a warm solo from mezzo-soprano Abigail Sherman answered by the robust choir in five parts.

Not surprisingly, the focus rested on the organization’s namesake. Soprano Sophia Sorrentino sang the aria “Wer ein wahrer Christ will heissen,” from Bach’s Cantata No. 47, with elegant lightness. In a rather exposed texture, her voice largely impressed by its laser-like accuracy. Associate conductor Theodore S. Davis played the obbligato part, which Bach later transferred to a violin, in its original form on the group’s new continuo organ, which made a more authentic sound.

Photo: Kayleigh Sprouse

The Bach in Baltimore singers performed “Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder,” the final movement from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, without their Anne Arundel colleagues. They sounded remarkably full even though the score is for two SATB choruses, with intimate echoes in the middle section. The small orchestra, also divided to cover the double orchestra parts, played with a warm tone.

Dimmock featured his orchestra in a few selections, played on  modern instruments. The trumpets generally played well, although the horns were not always accurate and intonation wavered in the small number of strings, especially on the lower side of the ensemble. The timpanist provided a solid foundation rhythmically, but his sound wildly overpowered the room and all of his colleagues, at least in part because of his placement closer to the audience than the brass.

Dimmock turned to the seraphic “In Paradisum” movement from Fauré’s Requiem as a nod to the rest of music history. With the two choirs joined together again, the soprano section struggled with intonation issues in the exposed solo passages, but the overall effect was serene. 

The amassed ensemble made its most confident and polished sound in the final selection, the “Dona nobis pacem” from Bach’s Mass in B Minor. Dimmock and his musicians layered each polyphonic entrance effectively and independently, leading to gleaming trumpet entrances soaring over the rest of the texture. The concert proved a joyous celebration of Dimmock’s achievements and expressed hope for the organization’s future.

Bach in Baltimore performs two free concerts of American music for Independence Day July 4 and 5. bachinbaltimore.org