Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Cox’s performances hits highest notes as JS Bach
BRIAN Cox turns in a towering performance as JS Bach in Oliver Cotton’s new play, directed by Trevor Nunn, which is now premiering at the Theatre Royal Bath.
And, my goodness, it’s a demanding role in which the actor is centre stage much of the time, and a commanding presence throughout.
Audiences, many of whom may know Cox best as the patriarch Logan Roy in the hit HBO series Succession, are packing out performances nightly during the show’s run in the city.
Cotton’s play is based on an actual meeting in 1747 between two very different geniuses – that of Bach, acclaimed musician and composer, and the Prussian king Frederick the Great, military campaigner and domestic moderniser.
Theirs is not a meeting of minds, Bach being a believer in the glory of God while the king is firmly an unbeliever, and the visit leads to two highstakes challenges.
The king has written a short musical theme that came to him in a dream and he sets Bach the seemingly impossible task of improvising an impromptu three-part fugue around it. Egged on by the court musicians who themselves have tried and failed, it is a high-stakes challenge, heightened by a wager that is designed to catch the old composer out.
But Bach succeeds and – to the horror of all and especially his own court musician son Carl (Matthew Burns) – dares to challenge the King on military and moral matters.
The dynamic is riveting, with Bach as the infuriated, straight-talking old man, careless of his own safety, and the king (well played by Stephen Hagan) as the foppish if resolute monarch.
Much of the play is very funny thanks to the splendidly named sycophantic court musicians Quantz (Christopher Staines), Benda (Benedict Salter) and Graun (Eric Sirakian) who perform these roles much like a Baroque version of the Three Stooges.
Peter De Jersey’s fawning fauxFrench depiction of the philosopher Voltaire – Frederick’s close companion – is also fabulous. There’s excellent support too from Dona Croll as outspoken servant Emilia and from Cox’s own wife Nicole Ansari-Cox as his opera-singing stage wife Anna.
The play is clever – perhaps too clever – in that the action builds and interweaves in the manner of a fugue, with the king even paying a surprise visit to Bach at his home to reprise their previous arguments. But there is no resolution and the king himself asks, what does it all mean? Something we too may ask.
What their meeting did lead to, however, was Bach’s now famous anthology The Musical Offering based on Frederick’s theme. In the play he sends this to the king along with a gushing tribute, but we learn in an epilogue that it had been placed on a shelf, where it lay unopened for nine years.
The interweaving of discussion on musical composition and inspiration, and between the spiritual and rational, make this a challenging drama to follow without an understanding of fugue and the history of the period. You need to read the programme!
But it is interesting and is lifted by excellent performances throughout, while a magnificent set and lighting (Robert Jones and Johanna Town) allows for a seamless fluidity in scene and mood change.
Thursday night’s audience responded with prolonged applause and a standing ovation.
The Score appears at the Theatre Royal Bath until Saturday, October 28. Call the box office on 01225 448844 or visit www.theatreroyal. org.uk.