Our next Bach Cantata performance will be on 31 May, when we present one of Bach’s most spellbinding masterpieces, BWV 173, Erhöhtes Fleisch und Blut. This Bach Vespers service takes place at 6.30pm at the church of St Mary at Hill in the City of London, hosted by St Anne’s Lutheran Church.

This cantata specifically features flutes, which add a flavour of elegance and delicacy. Bach took the music from a secular cantata composed in Köthen as a birthday tribute to his employer. In 1724, Bach adapted this music to a new text in exaltation of God, adding extra instruments and singers to create BWV 173. The secular origins of the music can be heard in the dance-style of many of the movements, not least the unusual and attractive duet for soprano and bass, which builds up in instrumentation from a modest opening to a glorious ending. This is an upbeat feel-good cantata celebrating God’s goodness towards mankind.

The service will also include other music, both vocal and instrumental, by Bach and other German baroque composers, performed on period instruments.

Everyone is welcome (you don’t have to be religious), and attendance is free. Do come along and bring your friends. We look forward to seeing you there to share Bach’s wonderful music!

Following Bach Vespers: 28 June (BWV 10).

Come and join us on 26 April, for a performance of Bach’s extraordinary cantata, BWV 12, Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen. This Bach Vespers service takes place at 6.30pm at the church of St Mary at Hill in the City of London, hosted by St Anne’s Lutheran Church.

Bach was aged only 29 in 1714, when he composed BWV 12, whilst he was employed at the court of Weimar. He performed it again in Leipzig in 1724, when the finest music was required to impress distinguished visitors to the Leipzig trade fair. The text of this highly expressive cantata reminds listeners that by remaining steadfast through suffering, sadness will be turned into joy. 

The cantata displays some of Bach’s earliest (and most beautiful) writing for the oboe. The poignant opening sinfonia is like the slow movement of an oboe concerto, and the alto aria features a glorious oboe obbligato melody. The dramatic opening chorus represents a complete outpouring of grief, with its falling chromatic bass line, drawn out suspensions, and sighing figures in the vocal parts. Over 30 years later, near the end of his life, Bach adapted this movement as the basis of the ‘Crucifixus’ in his B minor mass. The chorale melody ‘Jesu meine Freude’ appears as a cantus firmus in the tenor aria, with its metaphorical description of storms passing and blossom following rain. A bright and positive chorale brings the cantata to an uplifting end.

There will also be lots of other music in the service, both vocal and instrumental, by Bach and other German baroque composers, performed on period instruments.

Everyone is welcome (you don’t have to be religious), and attendance is free. Do come along and bring your friends. We look forward to seeing you there to share Bach’s wonderful music!

Following Bach Vespers: 31 May.

On 29 March we present the five Passion Motets by Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672, pictured), from his Canciones Sacrae of 1625. This service takes place at 6.30pm at the church of St Mary at Hill in the City of London, hosted by St Anne’s Lutheran Church.

Intense and powerful, the Schütz Passion motets (SWV 56-60) are packed with emotion and rich harmonies, despite their early date. Their raw drama has been likened to that of Caravaggio’s paintings, and they are considered to be a highpoint of seventeenth-century repertoire. The motets will be interspersed with poignant instrumental music by Bach, to create a memorable event which perfectly sets the tone for the forthcoming Passion season.

Everyone is welcome (you don’t have to be religious), and attendance is free. Do come along and bring your friends. We look forward to seeing you there to share this moving music!

Our next Bach Cantata performance will be on 22 February, when we present one of Bach’s most spellbinding masterpieces, BWV 150, Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich. This Bach Vespers service takes place at 6.30pm at the church of St Mary at Hill in the City of London, hosted by St Anne’s Lutheran Church.

BWV 150 is one of Bach’s earliest extant cantatas, probably composed in 1707, when he was employed in Arnstadt, at the church pictured. Unusually for a Bach cantata, the chorus features in the majority of movements, and there are no recitatives, although there is an exquisite soprano aria as well as a vocal trio. The exact time of year for which it was composed is unknown, but the text, with its mixture of penitence and hope, makes it ideal for Lent. The name of one of Bach’s supporters, in whose honour it may have been composed, is cleverly incorporated into in the text as an acrostic. The piece opens with an instrumental sinfonia and closes with a chaconne, the bass of which was poached by Brahms and appears in his Fourth Symphony.

There will also be lots of other music in the service, both vocal and instrumental, by Bach and other German baroque composers, performed on period instruments.

Everyone is welcome (you don’t have to be religious), and attendance is free. Do come along and bring your friends. We look forward to seeing you there to share Bach’s wonderful music!

Following Vespers event: 29 March (Schütz, Passion motets).

Come and join us on 25 January as we perform Bach’s splendid cantata, BWV 111, Was mein Gott will, das g’scheh allzeit. This Bach Vespers service takes place at 6.30pm at the church of St Mary at Hill in the City of London, hosted by St Anne’s Lutheran Church. There will also be lots of other music too, both vocal and instrumental, by Bach and other German baroque composers, performed on period instruments.

This service marks the tenth anniversary of the City Bach Collective. The group was formed specifically to perform cantatas in Bach Vespers, after former cantor Martin Knizia left. We performed our first service under the name City Bach Collective in January 2016.

Everyone is welcome (you don’t have to be religious), and attendance is free. Do come along and bring your friends. We look forward to seeing you there to share Bach’s wonderful music!

Following Bach Vespers: 22 February (BWV 150).