Michael Lawrence’s new documentary, Bach and Friends, is a two-hour love letter to the Baroque master featuring commentary and performances by Joshua Bell, Béla Fleck, Hilary Hahn, Bobby McFerrin, Edgar Meyer, and the Emerson String Quartet, among other musicians and historians.  The film attempts to answer the single question, “Why is Bach great?”  To formulate a response, Lawrence begins to examine Bach from the perspectives of improvisation, science technology, electronics and gaming, mathematics, biography, and performance technique.

Roosevelt University’s Ganz Hall provided the intimate setting Tuesday evening for a dynamic performance by Italy’s Quintetto Bottesini in a concert sponsored by the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago.  Since 2006, the formidable ensemble has been dedicated to chamber music written or arranged for the violin-viola-cello-bass-piano combination.  The group showcased two such works, respectively: the Quintet in C Minor by Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires) by Astor Piazzolla.
 

Lynn Harrell provided the fire Sunday night that warmed a packed Pick-Staiger Concert Hall.  He shared the stage with violinists Robert Chen and Blair Milton, violists Roger Chase and Yukiko Ogura, and cellist Stephen Balderston in an all-Brahms program during Northwestern University’s Winter Chamber Music Festival.  Of course, to say that Harrell’s was the spark that ignited the music while in the company of such accomplished artists is slightly inaccurate; his stage presence and sonic power, however, were simply unmatched.
 

Classical and Baroque enthusiasts were treated to expert readings of Mozart, Haydn, and Telemann Thursday evening at Symphony Center under the restrained direction of Nicholas Kraemer.  The English conductor led a chamber orchestra of CSO musicians through selections from Mozart’s Divertimento in D Major, maintaining a bouncy exuberance and enjoying the delicate cadences without lingering.  The playful flute passages sparkled with clarity, while the horns anchored a stately waltz.  Haydn’s Symphony No. 88 in G Major continued building the program with a nuanced, nimble energy and a percolating bassoon.