Yet only a handful are known or played today. He kept this up for five years, and although we have lost about a third of the total, the remaining two hundred are among the great glories of European music. Several of these he wrote early in his career but from the time that he moved to Leipzig in 1723 aged 38, he threw all his energies into the task of composing a complete set of cantatas for every Sunday and feast-day in the church year -about sixty in all. But for me the heart of Bach lies in the weekly cantatas he wrote in the service of the church. Doubtless there will be a plethora of Bach celebrations all over the world in 2000 in the best concert halls and in all the major cities, featuring the most famous of his works - the Brandenburg concertos, the B minor mass and the Passions. "Where there is devotional music, God with his grace is always present." (Bach´s entry in his bible) "By a strange quirk of history, the 250th anniversary of Bach´s death falls in the year 2000, at a pivotal moment in human history - a time for looking back and forward. John Eliot Gardiner on tour with the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists documentaryĪbout Gardiners year long project of performing all of Bach´s known church cantatas on the apropriate Sundays - in celebration of the 250th death day of Johann Sebastian Bach. BACH CANTATA PILGRIMAGE | 60 MIN | BBC Wales 2001
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |