Our next Bach Vespers is on 28 July at 6.30pm at the church of St Mary at Hill in the City of London. This date is the anniversary of Bach’s death in 1750. We perform Bach’s powerful cantata BWV 168, Tue Rechnung! Donnerwort. Composed in 1725, this cantata, based on the concept of being accountable for one’s actions, contains a number of surprises. The operatic drama of the opening movement depicts the ‘Word of Thunder’ on Judgement Day, which rends the rocks and makes one’s blood run cold. Money metaphors are used throughout the work to describe spiritual debt, with rather worldly references to payment, business calculations, capital investment and interest in extraordinary detail – not something we would necessarily expect to find in a sacred work! All is explained by the fact that Salomo Franck, Bach’s librettist in this cantata, was director of the Weimar mint. After a splendid showpiece duet for soprano and alto over a repeated bass, the cantata ends with a serenely lyrical chorale. The service will also include music from the German Baroque for voices and period instruments.
Everyone is welcome, so do come along and bring a friend. You don’t need to be religious, you can just come to enjoy the music. Entrance is free (with a voluntary collection). We look forward to seeing you and sharing Bach’s wonderful music.
Do join us for Bach Vespers on 30 June at 6.30pm in the church of St Mary-at-Hill in the City of London. We’ll be performing Bach’s powerful chorale cantata BWV 93, Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten. This work of great beauty and variety, composed three hundred years ago in 1724, highlights the concept of trust, which offers stability, freedom from worry, and sunshine after rain. The chorale theme on which it is based, which appears in every movement, must have been one of Bach’s favourites, because it is the one he uses more than any other in his collection of over 200 cantatas. This cantata includes a duet for soprano and alto, which Bach later reused as the third of his famous organ Schübler Chorales. We’ll also perform music by other German baroque composers, with period instruments.
Do join us for Bach Vespers on 26 May at 6.30pm at the church of St Mary at Hill in the City of London. We’ll be performing Bach’s little-known masterpiece BWV 176, Es ist ein trotzig und verzagt Ding, a cantata originally written to celebrate the feast of the Trinity in 1725. Bach enriches the woodwind sound by adding an oboe da caccia (pictured) to the usual two oboes. In the alto aria, all three oboes play in unison, a symbolic representation of the three-in-one Trinity. Other features of the work are the striking opening fugue and gavotte-style soprano aria, all set to a text by the female librettist Christiana Mariana von Ziegler. The service will also include music from the German Baroque for voices and period instruments.
Come and join us for Bach Vespers on 28 April at 6.30pm at the church of St Mary at Hill in the City of London. We’ll be performing the splendid cantata BWV 86, Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch, a work bursting with variety of musical colours and textures. Each solo aria features different instrumental effects, from weaving contrapuntal strings to bubbling oboe d’amores, with a sparkling violin obbligato thrown in along the way. We will also perform other music from the German baroque for voices and period instruments.