By Nancy Plum

There is never a bad time to celebrate Johann Sebastian Bach. Princeton Pro Musica put a fall spin on the Baroque master this past weekend with a performance of several Bach showcase works. Conducted by Ryan J. Brandau, Sunday afternoon’s concert at Richardson Auditorium brought together Pro Musica, the New York Baroque, Incorporated orchestra (playing period instruments), two solo violinists and eight vocal soloists in four of Bach’s most festive and exuberant pieces.

Brandau opened Sunday’s concert featuring all eight vocal soloists in one of Bach’s six surviving motets. Bach’s music is never easy to sing, and the challenges of Singet dem Herrn ein Neues Lied included maintaining a buoyant sound to the vocal lines, with crisp articulation and attention to musical details. Likely first introduced in Leipzig in the late 1720s, this double-chorus work was constructed in four contrasting sections, utilizing common compositional forms of both Bach and his times.

Sopranos Aine Hakamatsuka and Marisa Curcio, mezzo-sopranos Eliana Barwinski and Gabriela Estephanie Solís, tenors Gene Stenger and Steven Caldicott Wilson, and baritones Harrison Hintzsche and Will Berman were divided into two quartets and accompanied by the precise New York Baroque ensemble. Both singers and instrumentalists well captured an 18th-century light character. Performing Bach’s motets with one singer on a vocal line may well have been what the composer heard from his own choirs, when music was presented in intimate spaces, rather than large halls.

All of the vocal soloists had extensive experience in 17th and 18th-century performance practice, but not all carried well in the acoustics of Richardson Auditorium. With the orchestra deliberately kept subdued, the men’s solo voices in particular were hard to hear. Soprano Curcio sang with a very strong top register, and the eight singers together created the fullest sound in the closing section of the motet.

Bach’s concerti for solo instruments demanded expert technique from the musicians while also demonstrating intricate counterpoint and sophisticated musical forms. Concerto for Two Violins is Bach’s only surviving work in this genre for two melody instruments. All three movements are fugues in which one soloist echoes the other, with further musical commentary from the orchestra. Featured on Sunday were violinists Kako Miura and Isabelle Seula Lee, both principal players in the New York Baroque ensemble. Lee showed herself immediately to be a refined player, with passages imitated by Miura with equally as exact playing. The two soloists provided long and languid melodic lines in the second movement “Largo,” with cleanly tapered phrases from the accompanying orchestra in a graceful triple meter. Cellist Sarah Stone, bassist Wen Yang and harpsichordist Robert Warner supported the solo lines with solid continuo playing.

The orchestral suite was one of the most popular musical forms of the 18th century — taken from popular social dances and compiled for public performance. Conducted by Brandau, the New York Baroque orchestra played Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major with crisp dotted rhythms and elegant colors from the wind players, punctuated by a trio of Baroque natural trumpets. Brandau stylistically took his time in cadences and created an effective variety in dynamics.

The marquee work on Sunday afternoon’s program was Bach’s Magnificat, dating from the composer’s years in Leipzig. Brandau used seven of the eight vocal soloists for this performance, creating variety in how the solo arias were presented. In many of his large-scale choral/orchestral pieces, Bach assigned specific instruments to certain voices, which could well be heard. Soprano Hakamatsuka was hauntingly accompanied by oboist David Dickey and Solís sang an aria of the hungry being filled with good things, delicately complemented by flutists David Ross and Mei Stone. Tenor Stenger was among the strongest of the eight soloists, along with baritone Hintzsche, who demonstrated clean extended vocal runs in an aria about the Almighty’s power.

The music of Bach has always been an anchor of repertoire for Princeton Pro Musica, and the more than 80 singers of the chorus were well prepared and firmly in command of Bach’s complexities. Runs were well articulated and block chordal passages rang through the hall. Princeton Pro Musica closed the afternoon with a final chorus from Bach’s Mass in B minor, allowing the music to unfold in full majesty while reflecting on the text’s call for peace.

Princeton Pro Musica will present its next performance on Sunday, December 14 at 4 p.m. at Richardson Auditorium. A Feast of Carols will feature a celebration of seasonal music arranged for chorus and orchestra. Ticket information can be obtained by visiting princetonpromusica.org.