Happy Birthday, Mr. Bach!

Tue. 21.3.2023
Concert
Happy Birthday, Mr. Bach!
Tue 21.3.2023

Johann Sebastian Bach's birthday on 21 March (according to the Julian calendar) provides an occasion for a performance of his motets. In cooperation with the Salzburger Bachgesellschaft, the masterpieces will be performed by with a soloist cast of only eight singers.

The motets written between 1723 and 1735 concentrate Johann Sebastian Bach's way of thinking and creating in a very confined space - both musically and theologically. In them, Bach combines his vocal style, influenced by instrumental figures, with central contents of the Protestant doctrine of faith. If the texts once again formulate, for example, the role of spiritual contemplation in overcoming the passions or the fundamental role of Christ as savior, Bach demonstrates in the musical arrangement his masterful handling of old and new movement techniques. Chorale setting and chorale variation, fugue technique and rhetorical word interpretation, double-chorale or arioso setting - the breadth of stylistic devices employed defines an optimum of Baroque expressiveness.

Program:

  • BWV 231 - Jauchzet dem Herrn, alle Welt    
  • BWV 226 - Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf
  • BWV 229 - Jesu meine Freude      
  • BWV 228/ 1 - Fear not  
  • BWV 229 - Come, Jesu, come
  • BWV 225 - Sing to the Lord  

The concert will take place on 19. March at 17.00 also in Bad Reichenhall, Ev. Lutherische Kirche.