Glory goes to the orchestra

Helmuth Rilling, the eminent Bach specialist, was once a regular presence on the podium of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Many of us considered his return to conduct the orchestra and the Los Angeles Master Chorale in a “Bach-Fest” Saturday in the Walt Disney Concert Hall an occasion. The venue was sold out, and tickets for the repeat of the concert Sunday at UCLA’s Royce Hall were going fast.

The program consisted of three cantatas and the Double Concerto in C minor for Violin and Oboe. The cantatas were No. 68, “Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt” (God so loved the world); No. 105, “Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht” (Lord, enter not into judgment), and beloved No. 140, “Wachet auf” (Sleepers, awake).

If the Concerto rightfully earned the most enthusiastic ovation of the evening, the reason wasn’t only the splen- did playing of LACO concertmaster Margaret Batjer and principal oboist Allan Vogel. It was also because Rilling had a penchant for treating voices as instruments and instruments as voices.

What this means is that he gave the instrumentalists more expressive freedom and leeway than he did the singers. Batjer and Vogel took the opportunity, not only here but also in their obbligatos in the cantatas. One of the most uplifting moments took place in the wondrous coda to the soprano aria “Mein glaubiges Herze” (My believing heart) in Cantata No. 68, when one instrument after another took up the soloist’s theme.

But the cantatas are about their texts. Everything Bach did musically was to illuminate, set off and emphasize the words, readily available in the program through Thomas Somerville’s excellent, literal translations.

A wall of sound -- beautiful, balanced and integrated such as the 40 voices of the Master Chorale produced under Rilling’s direction -- isn’t enough. There must be more lively attention to individual words too. Surely the word prachtig (glorious), for instance -- in the line of Christ’s coming from heaven prachtig in “Wachet auf” -- merits more than a glossing over.

It was hard to tell whether Rilling was casting a benevolent, watchful eye over the vocal soloists, or keeping them under close arrest. It sounded more like the latter. Soprano Julia Kleiter, mezzo-soprano Fredrika Brillembourg, tenor Marcus Ullmann and bass Michael Dean, despite their varied vocal talents, sounded equally boxed in.

Had the soloists and the chorus been given more freedom to interpret the texts, the evening might have been heaven.