from standard.co.uk

On Friday, the new director of the V&A, Tristram Hunt, wrote a featured comment for the London Evening Standard. It’s a useful article about the role of the V&A in curating and focusing on work of cultural interest, even if – in fact, especially if – the work doesn’t immediately appear to belong in the pantheon of the work that has stood in the V&A Museum for many years.

We wrote a short, supportive reply, focusing on the similar position in which the musicians who work in and around the City of London aim to maintain the cultural spirit of the traditions (be they social or aesthetic) in which they find themselves working.

We said:

It’s good to see that Mr Hunt sees the V&A as curating contemporary cultural items, trends and activity to reflect their heritage, and to offer inspiration for new direction.

We, as musicians working in the capital – especially at pageant-style events and church services – also provide this function. We perform music for specific functions on sites and at times for which it was designed. Those attending are taking part in an event which becomes part of the tradition.

This year is the 500th anniversary of the defining act of the Reformation. We are taking part in a number of events in which music written for the rise of Lutheranism or the concomitant Protestant churches is performed in actual church services in and around the City. The value is to remind ourselves what this must have felt like, both aesthetically and as an act of ministry.

As these events are often parts of acts of worship, then people often tell us how the musical performance is given special investment in the context of a service, how the music and the service is emancipated from history to become real. This is the ongoing work of London musicians that needs no special exhibition but lives on through the interest and involvement of both the regular and occasional visitor.

On Sunday 7 May we are returning to the Dutch Church in the City of London to perform Bach’s famous cantata BWV 80 Ein feste Burg. The event features organ music by Bach on the wonderful Dutch Church organ performed by the organist David Titterington, and the economist Willem Buiter gives a talk just prior to our cantata performance.

Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott is the title of the most famous of the hymn melodies composed by the founding figure of the Reformation movement, Martin Luther. This year is the 500th anniversary of Luther posting his 95 theses to the church door in Witternburg, the defining act of the Reformation. This cantata is consequently a featured event on the Lutheran Council of Great Britain’s Reformation 500 site.

The event, at 3pm on Sunday 8 January 2017 is free to attend (there’s a collection to which you can contribute) and lasts around an hour. More via the Dutch Church website at dutchchurch.org.uk.

Hear, O shepherd of Israel BWV 104 is the cantata we will perfom at Bach Vespers with St. Anne’s Lutheran Church on 30 April (at 6.30pm). The music immediately conjures a pastoral scene with its three low oboes (two d’amore and the curved taille) all performing music in swung, compound time.

Also during the service, Emily Atkinson will sing Dietrich Buxtehude’s motet O fröhliche Stunden, BuxWV 84 and we plan to perform other short pieces of German baroque music suitable for the occasion.

Services of Lutheran Vespers last just over an hour. They are free to attend, though you may contribute to a collection during the service. Tea & coffee are available afterwards.

(The image above is from a photograph taken during the annual Sheep Drive, a pageantry event held in the City of London by the Livery Company of Woolmen, parading across London Bridge with small flocks of sheep.)

We are very pleased that BBC Radio 4 got in touch to ask if we would contribute to a programme about J. S. Bach. Producer Katharine Longworth was interested in our work playing Bach cantatas within the liturgy of Lutheran Vespers and wanted to record us performing and speaking about J. S. Bach as part of Bach: Man of Passion, one of a number of programmes to be broadcast during Holy Week this year.

Image: Joseph Ford Thompson Photography

Well, Bach: Man of Passion went to air yesterday afternoon. The dense but informative and entertaining half hour is in no small part to the Bach scholar de nos jours Professor John Butt (of Glasgow University and the Dunedin Consort) who finds such richesse in all aspects of Bach’s life – but keeps coming back to the music. Soprano Nicola Corbishley and organist Simon Lloyd recorded the aria Öffne dich from cantata BWV 61 Nun komm der Heiden heiland (which they had performed together in the 40th Anniversary Concert in November last year, above right). Nicola and Simon, along with Cheyney Kent then spoke with John Butt briefly about the service of Bach Vespers, how performing the cantata within a church service can be a unique experience.

You can listen to the programme here – you are also able to listen to the complete aria recording here, courtesy of the BBC.

What a lovely start to the day. Petroc Trelawny talked about us on the ‘Bach before 7’ slot on BBC Radio 3’s Breakfast show, describing our group and its work and referring to the 40th anniversary concert in November last year. They then played the duet ‘Mein freund ist mein’ from cantata BWV 140, featuring our old friend oboist Anthony Robson. The broadcast is here, from about 25 mins in or listen to an excerpt below: