A long, extended weekend of events brought about the performance of some of the most beautiful and appealing works in this year’s edition of the Valletta International Baroque Music Festival.

The venues were the church of All Souls, the Manoel Theatre and the cathedrals of St John and St Paul. The concerts were dominated by music by J.S. Bach, but it was with Abos, M.A. Vella, Handel, Steffani that this weekend started.

On Friday 16, at the packed Anglican pro-Cathedral of St Paul, music lovers enjoyed music by two of the most distinguished 18th-century Maltese composers side by side with Handel and the lesser known Agostino Steffani, composer-priest and Vatican diplomat.

The set of six Sonate a Tre, Op. 1 by Mikiel’anġ Vella were considered good enough to be published in Paris in 1768. This assessment of them was well borne out when members of the Valletta International Baroque Ensemble performed in best possible style the four-movement Sonata a Tre, N. 6.

On the other hand, Steffani’s pluck was such that he risked irking his superiors when he wrote secular works like the cantata Occhi, Perchè Piangete? for two voices and figured bass, here in an ably-balanced interpretation by soprano Gillian Zammit and mezzo-soprano Clare Ghigo.

More doleful stuff came with soprano Mhairi Lawson sing-ing Handel’s cantata Armida Abbandonata HWV 105.

On top form and with a fine Italian diction, Lawson went through a greatly contrasting emotional journey hovering between a lust for vengeance, hopeless loving involvement with the object of her scorn and self-disgust at being in such a state.

Handel surely never did things by halves and neither did Zammit in her pleading Credete al Mio Amore, from Handel’s Alcina, in which she begs a formerly-scorned lover to take her back when she repents of an unwise thing she had done.

There was to be more Handel when members of Vibe performed his early Trio Sonata in B flat, Op. 2, N. 3, with all the required deftness and elegance of touch.

The evening closed with Abos’s magnificent Stabat Mater in which all the above vocalists engaged in beautifully-structured work giving all three singers opportunities to shine in various formations.

Maybe at times it was presented at a tempo rather too brisk for its Neapolitan style, but the work nevertheless created quite a positive stir. It was fitting that during this evening and on other occasions during this festival, Abos was remembered as this year marks the tercentenary of his birth.

The weekend proper was almost all J.S. Bach’s. That delight-ful church of All Souls (alias, St Nicholas) was the venue of a rather historic first for Malta.

Not only were all Bach’s six suites for solo cello performed, but that was done by means of a violoncello da spalla, older and smaller than the cello we know and most probably the instrument for which Bach meant the suites.

This was explained by Belgian virtuoso Sigiswald Kuijken when, during two noon concerts, he performed Suites 1, 3 and 5 on Saturday and the rest on Sunday.

One could appreciate his deep insight

He explained all about the different tones between the two instruments and required technique to perform this cycle. One could appreciate his deep insight and stamina in these suites as revealed by this pioneer in the revival of the violoncello da spalla.

He performed all six standing up and also explained the reasons why he often had to re-tune the instrument. Humidity was one, while another was to adjust the instrument, which considerably changed the sound in the portentous Suite N. 5 in C Minor.

Yet again, to do justice to what he believes were Bach’s intentions, he changed the instrument for a five-stringed violoncello da spalla for Suite N. 6 in D and, of course, the difference could easily be heard, closing the cycle with great and much appreciated accomplishment.

The Saturday evening concert at the Manoel Theatre featured the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra directed by Peter Stark in a programme dubbed Inspired by Baroque.

Addressing the audience after the first work performed, the director said that this idea could be stretched and not really taken literally as the source and the end product could turn out vastly different.

However, if there could be a thousand reasons for the change in order or even change of items in a programme, that should be done before the concert begins.

That first work had many puzzled as, instead of being Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin it was the Couperin Dance Movement, a suite of eight pieces by Richard Strauss.

This included a delightful carillon (N. 3), on celesta (Gisèle Grima) and harpsichord (Joanne Camilleri). Of renaissance rather than baroque inspiration was the Renaissance Flute Concerto by Lukas Foss. The difficulties of this far from easy and often stark work (forgive the pun) were easily overcome by soloist Rebecca Hall in a fine collaboration with the orchestra, some members of which were performing off-stage to greater effect.

The music faded out eerily with Hall walking off stage to the back of the house returning to regale the audience with a solo encore of Greensleeves.

It was a right royal treat to be engulfed by the string section of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra with the performance of one of the noblest pieces of music ever written, the Fantasia on a Theme by Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams, which was like magic.

The full orchestra retained form in Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, saved for last. Good though it was, I would have preferred the RVW to crown the evening’s finale. De gustibus...

The late afternoon concert at the Manoel Theatre on Sunday featured pianist Joanne Camilleri in a performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

It is, perhaps, the most famous and influential set of variations ever composed, with the preceding aria repeated at the end.

Camilleri is a pianist equally adept as soloist and chamber musician and a consummate one at that. Her great passion for Bach is well known too.

Putting into her performance all her being and insight into this wonderful work, she ended up delivering a brilliant performance, the impact of which was reflected in the insistent applause at the end.

To some who may have been less informed, Camilleri’s to the point introduction, analysing the structure of the work and other details was an added bonus. It did reveal the intricacies of the work, which is after all, based on certain simple lines.

Adding practical examples and quotations on the piano made this exercise into something much better than any programme note could do. Still, parts of the audience felt that it should have been advertised as a lecture-recital and suggested a pre-concert talk in order to offer patrons a choice whether to attend that part or not. Again, a question of de gustibus.

Extending into Monday, this particular phase of the festival ended with Bach’s St John’s Passion at St John’s Co-Cathedral.

There could not have been a more splendid setting than this for such a gorgeous work. It certainly was a superb highlight having the Joyful Company of Singers and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment from the UK under the direction of Steven Devine, for what could well have been the first complete performance in Malta of this Passion.

It was a great experience marked by nigh impeccable balance of forces: a very well-trained chorus as crisp as the orchestra, beautiful phrasing and clear diction even in most of the very agitated crowd sequences.

Fine direction kept the work together and it flowed and moved forward ever so smoothly. Tenor Nicholas Mulroy’s Evangelist deserves great praise for his very expressive handling of the many recitatives which he sang almost entirely by heart.

Matthew Brooks’s Christ was rich, strong and beautifully toned, while soprano Julia Doyle’s, tenor Jeremy Budd’s and baritone Samuel Evans’s singing was hardly less impressive and accomplished.

Mezzo-soprano Clare Wilkinson’s singing the two counter-tenor arias was not all that well projected and at times almost inaudible. A great pity and it could have been just a bad day for her.