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Bachfest Leipzig 2025

09 Wednesday Jul 2025

Posted by in Cantatas, Leipzig, Travel

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Romanus-Haus in Leipzig, the house where poet Christiane Mariane von Ziegler held salons in the 1720s and 1730s.

I visited Bachfest Leipzig again this year, from Tuesday evening, June 17, through Sunday, June 22, attending eight concerts in six days. Read my highlights below, and please subscribe to this blog so you don’t miss future posts. I joined a festival trip to Merseburg, took walks, caught up with friends from all over the world, and met some new fellow Bach lovers. For me, the camaraderie has almost become a more important reason to return each year than the concerts.

That said, next year’s cantata programming is not to be missed, with Herreweghe AND Lutz AND Rademann, so if you would like to attend you should probably get organized – my tips for that at the end of this post.

Summer in Leipzig

June is the perfect time of year in this city. People are out on café terraces everywhere, and walking in the streets. Then there’s the summer green: entire rose bushes for sale on the street in the middle of the center, and linden trees in bloom wherever you go. The scent of linden delights me, and I learned something new about them this year, thanks to our Bachfest tour guide Anna-Sylvia Goldammer on the organ trip to Merseburg: Leipzig has apparently always been full of linden trees! The latin word for Leipzig, Lipsi, was derived from the Slavic word for linden tree, lipa. Most of downtown, inside the ring, is car-free, with only taxis and necessary vehicles allowed in. This makes it feel safe and, dare I say it, more walkable than Amsterdam.

The free performances can be the most meaningful

Inspired by a seatmate on the trip to Köthen last year, I attended more of the free or almost-free performances this year. You can still fully enjoy the camaraderie with other Bach fans and hear beautiful music without spending a fortune. There are no assigned seats for the church services, so as long as you line up early, you can enjoy the best view for free.

This year I had missed the free performances on the market square, but on Saturday morning, June 21, I was so lucky to attend an unforgettable, absolutely exquisite rendition of the duet from Cantata 79 Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild by soprano Miriam Feuersinger and baritone Tobias Berndt during the “Mette” (morning service) in the Nikolaikirche. The Sunday morning service in the Thomaskirche was special too. The service was a reconstruction of what a church service in Bach’s time would have been like (I could write an entire blog post about that!), I got to hear Johannes Lang play the organ, Tomáš Král sing the bass arias in Cantata 20 O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, and tenor Patrick Grahl sing not only the tenor aria in that cantata but also the cantor-bits in the service as well as the reading from the New Testament (yes this was sung, beautiful!). But I also happened to sit and sing (in the congregational singing) next to the 80-year-old father of choir director Maria Küstner. With great determination he had climbed all the stairs to the balcony, even though he was walking with a cane. When after the service I thanked him for his clear and confident singing, he told me that decades ago, on frequent car trips between Leipzig and Berlin, he would sing Luther’s “Wir glauben all an einen Gott” (one of the Lutheran chorales we had just sung in the service) to keep himself and the family awake. I forgot to ask him if this was still during GDR time, but it might very well have been.

Catching up with David Chin

This year I also finally had the opportunity to have lunch with David Chin, director of Bachfest Malaysia and creator of the excellent documentary Encountering Bach which I have referenced already a few times on this blog. We started conversations on Facebook during the Covid pandemic after David published his first episodes of the documentary, then met in person at the Thüringer Bachwochen in 2022, but only managed to say a few quick hellos at last year’s Bachfest. So grateful it worked out to talk this year!

Concert highlights: Alex Potter and David de Winter

Alex Potter in the Nikolaikirche on June 17. Photo courtesy of Sascha Wolff.

I had only just arrived to Leipzig on Tuesday June 17. I had not even unpacked yet, but I had a chance to hear “Missa Miniatura,” Elina Albach’s adaptation of Bach’s Mass in B Minor again, and I am a big fan of that production. So I ate a quick dinner and made it to the Nikolaikirche just in time. Alex Potter’s stunning rendition of the Agnus Dei at this concert was definitely a highlight of this Bachfest for me. In order to have a bit more acoustic, he had climbed up a few steps so he stood directly under an arch in the Nikolaikirche. Thanks to Sascha Wolff for capturing that moment on photo. After this aria I felt “we can now all die happily.” The other aria that transported me to a similar state of bliss was David de Winter’s “Der Ewigkeit saphirnes Haus” from Cantata 198 Laß, Fürstin, laß noch einen Strahl with Solomon’s Knot on Friday, June 20, in the Evangelisch-Reformierte Kirche. I had never heard this aria sung so beautifully.

Bach’s “50 best cantatas” by Lutz, Herrewege, and Rademann, Vox Luminis, Koopman, and Gardiner in 2026 – how to get organized

Disclaimer: I’m not getting paid to write this. Below is a reflection of my personal opinion and personal interpretation of the information that is available at the time of writing this blog post. I do not accept responsibility if your experience is different. I just thought it might be helpful to curate the information from various websites for you.

Anyone reading this who has visited Bachfest in the last few years: please feel free to add your own advice in the comments. Thank you!

Next year’s cantata programming at the festival is going to be a hit parade of the “50 best cantatas” (chosen by the audience, read more about the how and why in this interview with festival director Michael Maul by blogger Rick Fulkner) with two concerts each by Herreweghe, Lutz, Koopman, Gardiner, Rademann, and Vox Luminis. Here are my tips to get organized:

If you already know you want to attend all 12 cantata concerts (= two concerts per day, six days in a row, of two to three cantatas each, each cantata preceded by a motet by Schütz or Schein), you can purchase your “packet” here. You’ll go through two seat selection screens, one to select your seat for the Thomaskirche (the screen doesn’t specify this, but it is the seatmap that has the stage at the bottom, and “Südempore” on the right), and, once you have clicked the checkout button, another one for the Nikolaikirche (not specified either, but this is the map that has the stage at the top and 1. Empore and 2. Empore).

Please note for Thomaskirche:

  • For concerts with choir and orchestra, the performers are located on the organ loft of the Sauer-organ (the bottom of the seating map).
  • The majority of the pews downstairs, where the sound is likely best, have their backs to the performers. Many people don’t mind this, but it surprised me. Thus, if it is important for you to see the performers, choose a premium seat (yellow on the map) on one of the balconies, where the sound is wonderful too.
  • Some seats on the Empore (balconies) have partially blocked views of the performers due to large pillars, even the premium seats are not all equal, so don’t get your hopes up too much.

Please note for Nikolaikirche:

The sound is good everywhere in the church, but most seats on the balconies have limited leg space, so keep that in mind if you are tall, since these cantata concerts will be pretty long. The Bach Museum shop sells cute portable cushions for making your church pew seat more comfortable, see picture on the left, pillow folded in half. I also saw people who traveled with inflatable pillows.

If you want to pick and choose, only want to go to one concert per day, or don’t want to commit to spending a thousand euros just yet, mark your calendar:

  • November 11, 2025: Advance sales start for Patrons of the Bachfest/Bach-Archiv Leipzig and for members of the Neue Bachgesellschaft.
    • Become a patron of the Bachfest here (access to VIP seating for three concerts or more, depending on level of giving).
    • Become a member of the Neue Bachgesellschaft here (no special seating, just the earlier access to ticket sales).
  • November 25, 2025: Regular ticket sales start.

Where to stay: People I met had good experiences at Innside (hotel directly across the ring from the Thomaskirche, in a nice neighborhood), Motel One (close to the Nikolaikirche), and Adina Apartment Hotel (apartments close to the Nikolaikirche, 24-hour reception, pool, restaurant, bar). I myself stayed in Apartmenthotel Quartier M. which I loved because of the excellent organic supermarket on the ground floor of the same building, the good price, and the short walking distance to the Thomaskirche.

Copyright Wieneke Gorter, July 9, 2025.

First Sunday of Advent 1724: Bach helps commemorate and explain a 200-year-old hymn text

30 Saturday Nov 2024

Posted by in Advent, Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Leipzig

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Evangelischer Lieder-Commentarius (Evangelical Hymn Commentary) by Johann Martin Schamel from 1724: an annotated hymnal, published to commemorate the bi-centenary of Luther’s first hymnals. From left to right: the title page; page 89 with the first four verses of Luther’s hymn “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,” with lower-case letters and asterisks referring to footnotes; page 91 with the footnotes.

Please open this post in your internet browser (just click on the title at the top) to see the images placed the correct way – thank you!

Today’s cantata – Happy 1st Advent!

Warning: If you don’t feel like reading science journalism, and just came here to listen to a beautiful cantata, I got you: here is Cantata 62 Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland in an excellent new live performance by the J.S. Bach Foundation under the direction of Rudolf Lutz. I especially love the opening chorus as well as the tenor aria, sung from memory by Benedikt Kristjánsson (read more about him in my post about the Bachfest in Leipzig this past summer). Other soloists are Lisa Andres, soprano; Antonia Frey, alto; and Peter Harvey, bass.

Find the German text with English translation here, and the score here.

A special exhibition in Eisenach

A month ago, I traveled to Eisenach (Bach’s birthplace in Germany) to catch the last days of a special exhibition at the Bachhaus on the double anniversary of Luther’s hymns (500 years) and Bach’s chorale cantatas (300 years) and the connection between the two. I got to see in real life many hymnals that were in use during Bach’s time. What struck me right away was how small and narrow they are! They were truly meant to be held in one hand (so one could leaf through it with the other hand). This is of course exactly what Luther envisioned when he published the very first German-language hymnals in 1524: that churchgoers could read and sing along during the church service, and also easily use the hymnals at home and at school. This photo gives a good idea of their size compared to a larger book:

Luther’s “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland”

“Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland” in the Erfurter Enchiridion from 1524.

While most of the hymnals were displayed as in the photo above, the two oldest and rarest, on loan from libraries in Regensburg and Strasbourg, were hidden behind thick felt flaps to protect them from the light. One of these, Luther’s Erfurter Enchiridion (Erfurter Handbook) from 1524, lay opened to his Advent hymn “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,” the hymn Bach used two hundred years later, for Cantata 62 Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland for the first Sunday of Advent. Luther based this hymn on the then still well-known “Veni redemptor gentium” from the 4th century, closely translating the latin, and only slightly altering the melody.

Publications commemorating the bi-centenary of Luther’s hymnals in 1724 likely influenced Bach

Bach scholars have always wondered why Bach wrote an entire cycle of cantatas based on hymns. Some offer that his first cycle of cantatas (1723/1724) must have been too complicated for his audience (the Leipzig churchgoers) and that Bach, or possibly his employers, thus came up with something extremely familiar (the hymns) as a common thread for the second cycle of cantatas. Others say that the ability of the boy sopranos must have been so bad, judging by letters Bach later wrote to complain about this, that he switched to chorale cantatas so the choir sopranos would only have to sing the well-known chorale melody while the altos, tenors, and basses would sing more complicated parts.

While none, a combination, or part of these hypotheses might be true, recent research by Dutch theologian Dr. Lydia Vroegindeweij provides us with a third theory: Bach was very likely influenced by a strong movement in Lutheran Germany in the first quarter of the 18th century for the preservation and clarification of the original Lutheran hymns. His choice of 1724 as the year to start a cycle of chorale cantatas would thus not have been a coincidence at all, but a way to help commemorate the centenary of Luther’s first hymnals. The most important figures in this movement operated in Bach’s circle of friends and colleagues and of course Bach was a great admirer of Luther, having Luther’s entire oeuvre of writings in his library. So he would have been more than interested to support the efforts to preserve and better explain Luther’s hymns.

Specifically, Lydia makes a strong case that Bach and/or his anonymous librettist must have consulted Johann Martin Schamel’s Evangelischer Lieder-Commentarius (see the caption heading this post) for the recitative and aria texts for several if not all of his chorale cantatas. She has pointed out that many chorale cantata texts correspond to Schamel’s explanations, use the exact same words, or even follow Schamel’s suggestion to combine Luther’s psalm in question with another one (as is the case in Cantata 38, read more here).

As Lydia explains in a podcast she now has on a Dutch radio station, Luther’s hymn “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland” especially needed clarification, because in an effort to make the text rhyme and stay as close as possible to the original “Veni redemptor gentium,” Luther had made the text so compact that it had puzzled many hymnologists and clergy.

How does Bach illustrate Schamel’s explanations of this particular hymn?

In the first stanza (the literal text of the opening chorus), Schamel puts (a) after the word “Nun” (now) and explains [freely translated]: “As if it meant: Oh come now, you promised! Instead, it is the poetic style, and is not meant as if the Savior had yet to come into the world. But he comes to believers daily, again and again, each time as a new step of grace.” This concept of “again and again” and the “steps” are clearly present in the music of the opening chorus of Cantata 62.

Lydia says: “Schamel substantiates this with a reference to John 14:23. This corresponds with Luther’s own explanation of this verse in the Calov Bible [which Bach was also familiar with, and added to his own library in 1733]. There Luther also talks about daily contact, and about Jesus who would like to live with people in their houses and share a meal with them.”

The emphasis in this cantata is placed more on the sacred miracle of the human birth and less on the “coming”. This “Wunder” (miracle/wonder) is even more celebrated in the tenor aria. Lydia says: “The aria emphasizes that God encompasses the whole world with that kind of miracle and that we can only admire that grace.”

And the prize for the best interpretation of the tenor aria goes to …

When two years ago Lydia and I searched for the best interpretation of the tenor aria, i.e. the one that really emphasizes the “wonder,” our prize went to Jan Kobow on the Gardiner recording from 2000. Listen to it here. Kobow does a beautiful job expressing the wonder, not only in the first phrase, but also in the B-section when he sings “o, Wunder”. He also makes a striking contrast between those wondrous and quiet-making aspects of the miracle and the stronger, more convinced text of “Herrscher.”

However, now that I’ve heard and seen Benedikt Kristjánsson sing on the recording with the J.S. Bach Foundation, his singing strikes me as the perfect illustration of “God encompasses the whole world with that kind of mystery.”

Further reading

If you would like to do your own reading and interpreting of Schamel’s commentary, you can find it here (in German). If you would like to subscribe to Lydia’s newsletter, you can do so here. Also, please don’t forget to subscribe to my blog – just fill in your email address here below, and you will receive an email every time I post a new story. Thank you!

Wieneke Gorter, November 30, 2024.

About Weekly Cantata

I am a bilingual writer, publicist, choral singer, art and nature lover, foodie, happy wife, and blessed mother of two. I started this blog in 2016, inspired by my late mother’s love for Bach’s cantatas. After 23 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’m now back in the Netherlands.

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Leipzig for Bach = finally getting to work with the legendary Reiche and his crazy instruments

06 Sunday Aug 2023

Posted by in 1723 Trinity season special series, Bach's life, Cantatas, Leipzig, Trinity

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Olivier Picon with a natural horn on the left, and corno da tirarsi on the right

I’m in movie script mode again and jumping back 300 years, to the summer of 1723 in Leipzig. I believe that when moving to Leipzig, Bach couldn’t wait to meet the town’s famous brass player, Gottfried Reiche (1667-1734). I imagine that throughout the summer of 1723, these two creative geniuses would have frequently been “geeking out” about Reiche’s exciting innovation in brass instruments: the corno da tirarsi (or slide horn, on the right in the picture above), for which Bach most probably started writing around Trinity 4 in 1723 (about a month before today’s cantata).

As far as we know Reiche owned the one and only specimen and was the only one who knew how to play it. Scholars consider it very likely that he had the instrument specially made for him, in order to play more complicated music on a horn than one could at the time on a natural horn. 

I have written about the corno da tirarsi before. However, I never fully realized how incredibly special that instrument must have been at the time, what the exact difference was with regular horns at the time, and how it works. Ironically, as a result of musicians being stuck at home during the pandemic, there are now some excellent educational videos on youtube, which explain all of this much better than I could ever do in writing.

So here goes with the lesson:

For an excellent demonstration of the limitations of natural horns before 1750, please watch the first three and a half minutes of this video by Todd Wiliams from the USA.

Then watch this video by Anneke Scott from the UK, about the corno da tirarsi as reconstructed by Egger.

Thank you Todd Williams and Anneke Scott! If you would like to show your appreciation for Anneke’s efforts, you can buy her a coffee on this website. 

Gottfried Reiche

There is no doubt in my mind that Bach had already heard about Leipzig’s highly skilled senior Stadtpfeiffer (town piper) Gottfried Reiche before moving to Leipzig in May of 1723. Bach came from a family of town pipers, and in 1721 he married into a family where every single male was a trumpet player (just sit with that for a few seconds). Reiche was of the same generation as Bach’s father-in-law Johann Caspar Wilcke (c. 1660–1733), and both had been trained in Weissenfels, which Olivier Picon qualifies as “probably the most important city in trumpet playing tradition in Germany at that time” in his 2010 thesis about the corno da tirarsi. I can imagine the animated discussions at both the Bach and the Wilcke family gatherings. Reiche’s virtuosity as well as his unusual instruments* must have been a frequent subject!

Now we come to today’s Cantata 105 Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht. (Enter not into judgement with Thy servant, O Lord.) It is one of my favorite cantatas, and Bach’s first** Leipzig cantata with a significant solo part for the corno da tirarsi, in the tenor aria. For the educational purpose of this blog as well as for the excellent rendition of the tenor aria I would like to feature the live video by the J.S. Bach Foundation, with Olivier Picon (pictured at the top of this post) playing the corno da tirarsi in the opening chorus, the tenor aria, and the closing chorale. Other soloists are Sibylla Rubens, soprano; Jan Börner, alto; Bernhard Berchtold, tenor; and Tobias Wicky, bass.

Picon initiated the reconstruction of the corno da tirarsi by the Swiss brass instrument firm Egger, which Anneke Scott also refers to in her video. Picon’s thesis from 2010, documenting the reconstruction as well as meticulously analyzing all cantatas that might have possibly been written for this instrument, is still the main source for scholars when discussing the corno da tirarsi. In this work, Picon also shares that Cantata 105 is his favorite cantata to play on the instrument.

Read the German text with English translations of Cantata 105 here, and find the score here.

Of course there’s much more to this cantata than just the unusual instrumentation. In 2021, also as part of a pandemic project, I wrote a post for California Bach Society highlighting all the ways in which this cantata foreshadows the St. Matthew Passion. Please find that post here.  

I welcome your questions, comments, or words of encouragement below in the comment-section. 

Wieneke Gorter, August 6, 2023.

*Reiche apparently was also the owner and player of another unique instrument, the tromba da tirarsi, or slide trumpet.
**Cantata 24 for the 4th Sunday after Trinity 1723 also features a solo part that might have been meant for the instrument, but opinions about this vary, and even Picon suggests the opening chorus might be played on a tromba da tirarsi (slide trumpet) and the closing chorale on a natural horn.

J.S. Bach Foundation with Nuria Rial review and live video

18 Thursday Nov 2021

Posted by in Cantatas, Köthen, Leipzig, Weimar

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The church in Trogen, Switzerland, where the 15th anniversary concert of the J.S. Bach Foundation was recorded on November 17, 2021. Find it here on YouTube.

Nuria Rial in Basel

This week, the J.S. Bach Foundation celebrated 15 years of recording Bach cantatas with a special anniversary program in three cities in Switzerland: Basel, Trogen, and Zürich. I am still pinching myself that I got to attend the concert in Basel on Tuesday November 16, sitting only 6 feet (2 meters) from the amazing soprano Nuria Rial, who sang Cantata 199 Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut and Cantata 202 Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten.

Her performance was everything I had been hoping for and more. Her voice pulls you in from the start, and the energy and joy she exudes are just extraordinary. And then there’s her playfulness. I will never forget how special it was to experience that from up-close. I also realized what a true ensemble member she is, always in contact with the instrumentalists.

Amy Power in Basel

And those instrumentalists really need to be mentioned! Oboist Amy Power’s playing was lyrical throughout, with beautiful ornamentations in the “da capo” parts of the arias. I especially enjoyed the call-and response between her and Nuria Rial in the first movement of Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten. Her accomplishments were even more impressive knowing that she had been summoned from Graz less than 8 days before the concert, when the J.S. Bach Foundation heard that oboist Andreas Helm had to isolate at home because of contracting Covid-19.

First violinist Eva Borhi’s sensitive playing was especially gorgeous in the “Tief gebückt” aria from Canatata 199 and “Schlummert ein” aria from Cantata 82 with Manuel Walser. But my favorite was her interaction with Nuria Rial in the “Wenn die Frühlingslufte streichen” aria from Cantata 202.

Violist Sonoko Asabuki had an exquisite solo in the Chorale “Ich, dein betrübtes Kind” from Cantata 199, and cellist Daniel Rosin did a great illustration of Phoebus’ speeding horses in the third movement of Cantata 202, which earned a “Bravo” cheer from the audience, as if we were at the opera. (Always better than the audience member who fell asleep during “Schlummert ein,” snoring and all, a few rows behind me).

Last but not least, Rudolf Lutz, who directed the others from the harpsichord, improvised tasteful and effective mini-preludes leading up to the recitatives in Cantata 199, and very sensitively employed the lute register in the da capo of “Schlummert ein,” which formed a beautiful accompaniment to the pianissimo playing strings. He was also his usual witty self, making audience and performers laugh with his short speeches. My sister mentioned that even though we were here together at the concert because of our mother, she was actually strongly reminded of our grandfather. Also a man who always appeared very proper and Calvinist, but would then surprise you with his terrific sense of humor.

Watch this same performance, recorded live in Trogen, a day later than the one I attended in Basel here on YouTube.

Wieneke Gorter, November 19, 2021.

Nuria Rial singing Cantata 202: why this is special to me

15 Monday Nov 2021

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Nuria Rial

Today is an exciting day for me, because I get to see and hear Nuria Rial sing live for the first time in my life, performing a piece I have very fond childhood memories of. I also get to hug my sister for the first time in more than two years, and I get to explore the gorgeous city of Basel. It is a special week for my sister and me, since this coming Friday is the 11th anniversary of our mother’s death.

To remember our late mother and her love of music, every year my sister and I have tried to go to a concert together. Because I used to live in California and my sister lives in France, and we both have kids, it would not work out every year, but we’ve had some memorable experiences. In March 2013 we attended Bach’s St. Matthew Passion by Herreweghe in Cuenca, Spain, during Holy Week, which in Spain comes with processions in the streets. In November 2015 we went to Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers by Savall in the then brand-new Philharmonie de Paris, only a few days after the terrorist attacks. The last time we went to a concert together was in January 2018.

When the J.S. Bach Foundation announced their 15th anniversary concerts with Nuria Rial in Cantata 202, my choice for this year was made. I’m so grateful this is all working out and I am so excited I already woke up at 5 am this morning, as if I’m an elementary school kid, going on a field trip.

About that elementary school kid. One of my strongest childhood memories is of the time my sister and I accompanied my mother when she had to go sing at a wedding. It must have been late 1970s/early 1980s. The couple were both elementary school teachers, so they got married on a Wednesday afternoon, to make it possible for their students to attend their wedding as well. I remember absolutely nothing about all the other kids that must have been there that day. I only remember waiting for the bus, sitting on the floor of the organ loft, and hearing the music. Read more in this in this post, where you can also hear an example of the piece my mother sang that afternoon: the “Gavotte” from Cantata 202.

I have always wanted to visit Basel. It’s the place of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where so many of the Baroque musicians I admire received their training. But I also heard many stories about all the great art museums, the historic city, and how beautifully it is situated on the Rhine. When we returned from our trip to Italy in 2018, we had a wonderful stop-over with a dear friend near Basel, but all we got to see of the city were the two railway stations.

I first heard Nuria Rial sing on the German radio station WDR3, exactly one month after my mother passed away in 2010. I was staying at my parents’ house in the Netherlands with my kids. My mother had always preferred the German classical music station over the Dutch one, especially for their Early music programming, so WDR3 was pre-programmed into my parents’ fancy equipment. I heard Nuria Rial sing and she literally took my breath away. After it was over I went on Facebook and told all my singer friends (that’s why I still know what day it was). To get an idea, watch her live recording of the soprano aria from Cantata 36 with the J.S. Bach Foundation. I know I already said it, but tonight is the first time I’m going to hear and see her live.

It will also be the first time I’m going to see the J.S. Bach Foundation (Bachstiftung) perform live, after having been a fan of theirs for several years now, and having shared many of their videos on my blog. Read my last post about them (and another favorite soprano) here. I feel honored I get to celebrate their 15th Anniversary with them tonight.

There really is nothing like a live performance. But if you can’t make it to Switzerland this week, you can still watch this same concert 🙂 Tomorrow, Wednesday November 17, this same program will be live-streamed from Trogen, Switzerland, at 7 pm Central European Time, which is 10 am Pacific Time, 1 pm Eastern Time, or 6 pm in the UK. For more information on the live-stream, and to download the program booklet, click here. Direct links to the live stream are here, or on the YouTube channel of the J.S. Bach Foundation.

Wieneke Gorter, November 16, 2021.

Dorothee Mields in the spotlight – Third Sunday after Trinity

20 Sunday Jun 2021

Posted by in 1723 Trinity season special series, Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Köthen, Leipzig, Trinity, Weimar

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As far as we know, Bach wrote two cantatas for this Sunday, the third after Trinity: Cantata 21 Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis and Cantata 135 Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder.

Read my post from 2017 about Cantata 135 here. Since I wrote that post, a beautiful live video recording by the J.S. Bach Foundation has been released on YouTube. Find it here.

But now about Cantata 21. It is one of Bach’s most well-known cantatas and it gets programmed often because it features several exciting choruses. The version most of us know is with three soloists: a soprano, a tenor, and a bass. Bach first wrote it like that in Weimar and later performed a similar version in Leipzig in 1723, as part of his first year there. However, in 1720, he created a different version, which he performed in Köthen as well as in Hamburg. It is likely that this version was created for a special soprano soloist (possibly Anna Magdalena?), because in this version, Bach assigns all three tenor solos to the soprano as well, thus featuring the soprano in every solo movement. The bass joins her for two duets.

Dorothee Mields

It turns out that the J.S. Bach Foundation decided to perform this 1720 version for their live video series, with soprano Dorothee Mields and bass Peter Kooij. If I had been at that concert in person, I would have joined the whooping and clapping at the end, because it is an outstanding performance by both soloists but also by the chorus. I only discovered this video recording by accident tonight. I had completely missed it when it was released earlier this month. I meant to write a very short blog post today, quickly giving you some links to previous posts and then go to sleep, but I was completely mesmerized by Dorothee Mields’ singing and was unable to close my computer.

In my post from 2016 about Cantata 21, I show how similar the duet from this cantata is to the duet from Cantata 172 (also written in Weimar). When I watched the J.S. Bach Foundation video of Cantata 21 and witnessed Mields’ art of being in sync with her duet partner, I remembered there’s another wonderful video I have wanted to share. It is Dorothee Mields and Alex Potter singing the duet from Cantata 172 in this video by the Bach Akademie Stuttgart that came out at the end of May. I enjoy very much how sensitive Mields and Potter both are to the music and the text, and how beautifully and naturally their voices move together.

Wieneke Gorter, June 19, 2021.

Third Christmas Day

27 Sunday Dec 2020

Posted by in Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Christmas, Leipzig

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Winter on the Holterberg, the “local hill” in the region where I lived from age 6 to 16.

For me, December 27 is always the Third Christmas Day , whether it falls on that other cantata day, the Sunday after Christmas, or not. In the Netherlands, where I grew up, there are two days on which people celebrate Christmas: December 25 and 26. Special meals are eaten on both days. And because the country is so small, you can visit one part of your family on the 25th and then see the other part on the 26th. Most relatives expect you to do this. So, when I was a child, Third Christmas Day was always our first “free” day during the Christmas break, without church visits, meal prep, having to dress up (even though I liked that), or commitments to family.

We had a standing arrangement with friends for this day: if there was enough snow on the ground, and if we were in town, we would go cross-country skiing together on the only hill in our region. It was a half-joke, because the Netherlands isn’t very snowy, and it would take an extraordinary winter for there to be enough snow on the ground for cross-country skiing. When I was 16 we moved away from that region, so it maybe happened only once that we actually did this together with the other family, but just the idea was fun, and it didn’t feel like something we “had” to do to any of us.

This was a long introduction to justify why I am sharing a cantata for Third Christmas Day on this blog today, when I should be sharing cantatas for the Sunday after Christmas instead, as that day officially overrides the other.

Ever since I found out this video of Cantata 133 Ich freue mich in dir (I rejoice in you) existed, on November 1st of this year, I had been planning to share it today. It features two absolutely gorgeous tender arias by some of my favorite soloists and the wonderful ambiance Concerto Copenhagen always manages to convey in their Christmas videos. So here your are: Cantata 133 Ich freue mich in dir, written in 1724, by Concerto Copenhagen, from their 2011 Christmas concert, starring Alex Potter in the alto aria and Maria Keohane and her beautiful berry-red dress in the soprano aria. Find the video here, the text and translations here, and the score here.

Cantatas for Third Christmas Day have all been discoveries for me since I started writing this blog. None of these were cantatas my mother played on the turn table at home, probably for two reasons: 1. It was the day for the third cantata from the Christmas Oratorio (and this one was my sister’s favorite); 2. After playing the one cantata, we were usually off doing other things afterwards (see above), and my mother must have felt the “freedom” of this day too.

I will take a break for the next two weeks, and not post again until Sunday, January 17. Our first-born is flying the nest exactly two weeks from today, to go live on a college campus on the other side of the country, and we won’t see him in person again until May. So I would like to spend my time these next two weeks cooking, hiking, and laughing with the family, and helping my son get ready.

Here are some links for further reading and listening during those two weeks:

More cantatas for today:

Cantata 151 Süsser Trost, mein Jesus kömmt, written for Third Christmas Day in 1725. I recommended the performance by Maria Keohane (wearing a white and gold Christmas dress) with the Netherlands Bach Society in my post from 2019. Find it here.

Cantata Cantata 122 Das neugeborne Kindelein, written for the Sunday after Christmas in 1724. In addition to recommending the Herreweghe recording, in my blog post from 2017 I share my research as to why the word “Jubeljahr” (Jubilee) appears in this cantata.

Cantata 64 Sehet, welch eine Liebe hat uns der Vater erzeiget, written for Third Christmas Day in 1723. I recommended the recording by Harnoncourt and Bach Collegium Japan in my post from 2016. Find that here.

Or watch the cantata for the Third Christmas Day from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio following my links in this post.

Cantatas for New Year’s Day:

Watch the fourth cantata of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio by the J.S. Bach Foundation. You can find it here. The fourth cantata is my favorite part of the Christmas Oratorio, and soprano Miriam Feuersinger is absolutely fabulous in this performance.

Read my blog post from 2017 about Cantata 41 Jesu, nun sei gepreiset. Or explore on your own: Bach wrote several other cantatas for this day which I haven’t discussed on this blog yet: BWV 190 in 1724, BWV 16 in 1726, and BWV 171 in 1729.

Cantatas for Epiphany:

Read my very first post on this blog, from 2016 (apologies if some of the links don’t work anymore), my post from 2018, Or watch the last (6th) cantata from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio following my links in this post.

Thank you for following this blog! “See” you in three weeks.

Wieneke Gorter, December 27, 2020.

Angels — we can use some this week

25 Friday Dec 2020

Posted by in Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Christmas, Leipzig

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Hugo van der Goes, Portinari Altarpiece, detail of the center panel foreground, c. 1476, oil on wood. Uffizi galleries, Florence, Italy.

It has been hard to read the newspapers this week and not be touched or even completely floored by human suffering. That’s why Cantata 91 Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ (from 1724) is like a warm bath to me. The two horns in the orchestra already make my day, but there is also a strong presence of angels in the text and music of this cantata.

Watch a wonderful live registration of this cantata on YouTube by the J.S. Bach Foundation, with Monika Mauch, soprano; Margot Oitzinger, alto; Bernhard Berchtold, tenor; and Peter Kooij, bass.

Find the text and translations here, and the score here.

In the opening chorus (with the ascending scale of fast notes), Bach illustrates the “host of angels” singing, or, as Eduard van Hengel says, even “flapping their wings.”

Last year I already talked about how in most of his cantatas for Christmas Day, Bach focuses on Jesus’ journey from the godly realm, the heavenly glory, to being a struggling man on earth. It is very moving then to hear this following text in the bass solo. And it is a true Christmas present to me that it is Peter Kooij who is singing this on the J.S. Bach Foundation video, because he is one of the best to interpret texts like these. Note how Bach illustrates the “Jammertal” (vale of sorrow) at the end.

O Christenheit!
Wohlan, so mache die bereit,
Bei dir den Schöpfer zu empfangen.
Der grosse Gottessohn
Kömmt als ein Gast zu dir gegangen.
Ach, lass dein Herz durch diese Liebe rühren;
Er kömmt zu dir, um dich for seinen Thron
Durch dieses Jammertal zu führen.		 O Christendom!
Come now, prepare yourself
to welcome the creator amongst you.
The mighty Son of God
has descended and comes to you as a guest.
Ah, let your heart be moved by this love;
He comes to you, in order to lead you
through this vale of sorrow to his throne.

In the beautiful soprano-alto duet (arguably the best part of this cantata), Bach brilliantly illustrates the contrast between the human suffering and the heavenly angels. He sets the suffering parts of the text to chromatic lines, similar to those just introduced on that word “Jammertal” in the bass solo. To the heavenly angels he gives happy, dotted rhythms.

While I grew up waking up to Bach’s Christmas Oratorio on Christmas Day (read more about this tradition here), these days I much prefer listening to all the other, earlier cantatas Bach wrote for the period between from December 25 to January 6. However, there are two new video projects of the Christmas Oratorio just out or about to be launched this year that I don’t wish to ignore, so for those of you eager to watch and listen to any of that, here’s my one-paragraph overview:

Bach never intended this oratorio to be performed on one day. The Christmas Oratorio consists of six cantatas that were each meant to be performed on a different Sunday or holiday: First Christmas Day, Second Christmas Day, Third Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Sunday after New Year, and Epiphany. The J.S. Bach Foundation in Switzerland recently released all six cantatas for free on their YouTube channel. You can find the list of videos, one for each cantata, here. If you enjoy watching these videos, please consider donating to the organization so they can continue to pay their musicians and produce these wonderful registrations. Voces8’s excellent “Live from London Christmas” paid programming features all six cantatas performed by The Gabrieli Consort & Players under the direction of Paul McCreesh. Appropriately, each cantata will go live on the day for which it was intended. You can purchase this series here.

Wieneke Gorter, December 24, 2020

The First Sunday of Advent

29 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by in Advent, Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Leipzig, Weimar

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Hello everyone. I hope you are all safe and well. Thank you for reading this blog, and a warm welcome to all of you who started following recently. Bach wrote three cantatas for this Sunday:

In Weimar, in 1714, Bach wrote Cantata 61 Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland. This one I remember the best from my childhood, because my mother loved Seppi Kronwitter’s singing of the soprano aria on the Harnoncourt recording. Read about it here.

In Leipzig, in 1724, Bach wrote Cantata 62 Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland. My most recent writing about this cantata is from last week, not for this blog, but for that of California Bach Society. Find it here.

Since the release of Herreweghe’s recording in 1997 I have been in love with the opening chorus of Cantata 62. For me, nothing says “Christmas is coming” more strongly to me than this music. And yes, Bach wrote two Advent cantatas with the same title. You better not mix them up when you have been engaged to sing the bass solos. Read a story about that here. If you would like to learn more about this opening chorus, or even sing along to it yourself, I encourage you to sign up for California Bach Society’s free workshop on this cantata this coming Saturday, December 5, at 11 am Pacific Time, on Zoom.

Nuria Rial

In 1731, Bach transformed a secular birthday cantata from 1725 into Cantata 36 Schwingt freudig euch empor. Read about it here. My favorite interpretation of the soprano aria is by Nuria Rial. I first heard Nuria Rial sing on the German radio station WDR3, exactly one month after my mother passed away in 2010. I was staying at my parents’ house in the Netherlands with my kids. My mother had always preferred the German classical music station over the Dutch one, especially for their Early music programming, so WDR3 was pre-programmed into my parents’ fancy equipment. The radio host played a piece from this album, and I was mesmerized. After it was over I went on Facebook and told all my singer friends (that’s why I still know what day it was). But I didn’t find out about her live recording of the soprano aria from Cantata 36 with the J.S. Bach Foundation until 2014.

Wieneke Gorter, November 28, 2020

Getting all Dressed Up in the Opening Chorus.

25 Sunday Oct 2020

Posted by in Bach's life, Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Köthen, Leipzig, Trinity

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  • Friederike Henriette, Princess of Anhalt-Köthen
  • Christiane Eberhardine, Electress of Saxony
  • Sophia Dorothea,
    Queen of Prussia

My absolute favorite recording of Cantata 180 Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele (Adorn yourself, beloved soul, from October 22, 1724) is the video registration by the J.S. Bach Foundation from 2009. I love how the entire ensemble truly brings luster into the opening chorus and the soprano aria, and how the instrumentalists illustrate the “knocking” in the tenor aria. Also: Rudolf Lutz’s lecture about this cantata is in my top five of all his lectures I’ve watched so far.

When I first wrote about this cantata, in 2017, only the soprano aria from this video registration was available on YouTube, and Lutz’s lecture didn’t have English subtitles yet. However, this has all changed, and the entire cantata is now available here on YouTube, and Lutz’s lecture, now with English subtitles, can be found here. Soloists in the performance: Maria Christina Kiehr, soprano; Jan Börner, counter-tenor; Julius Pfeifer, tenor; and Fabrice Hayoz, bass. 

Find the German text with English translation here, and the score here.

When I listened to Lutz’s lecture again this week, I noticed some things I had missed when listening to it in 2017. For example, around 2 minutes into the lecture, when talking about the opening chorus, Lutz says:

“I like to compare it to a flowing wedding garment of the noblest kind.”

The title of the cantata is “Schmücke dich” (Adorn yourself) and the 20th Sunday after Trinity was a Communion Sunday in Leipzig. As I mentioned in my post from 2017, it was normal in Bach’s time to compare the Communion between Jesus and the believer, or Jesus and the soul, to the marriage between groom and bride. So it makes sense to use this image of a bride dressing up for her wedding. In addition, the reading for this Sunday mentions wedding guests being sent away because they are not dressed for the occasion. So on this 20th Sunday after Trinity, we can pay a bit more attention to clothing.

Lutz being Lutz, a talented improvisor, and often one to throw in some local folklore to make his Swiss audience laugh, makes a joke about that “wedding garment of the noblest kind,” and adds: “Perhaps by Akris, or so.” I had to Google that one, and it turns out that Akris is a Swiss fashion house that still has its headquarters in St. Gallen (the same town where the J.S. Bach Foundation resides), and has been owned by the same family continuously. There’s a nice New York Times article about its current creative director Albert Kriemler here.

I started thinking: if Bach also paid more attention to clothing for this Sunday, what would he have had in mind on the words “Schmücke dich”?

We know that the Rhine wine was flowing at Bach’s own wedding to Anna Magdalena in 1721, but for the rest it would probably have been a simple affair, since it was held at home. There are no paintings of the weddings of his employers, nor of the weddings that would have taken place in Leipzig at the time. However there are paintings of noble dresses Bach might have seen on official occasions, worn by the Princess his employer in Köthen married a little later in December 1721*, and by the consorts of dignitaries Bach would have visited in Dresden and Berlin. See pictures at the top of this post. This would then also be the style in which the noblewomen of Leipzig would have dressed up to go attend church, especially on an important Sunday such as this one.

Read more about all the luster in this cantata, and about an impatient groom/Jesus in my blog post from 2017. I’m apparently always late in posting for this Sunday, whether there are choir performances going on in my life or not.

Wieneke Gorter, October 25, 2020.

*In a rare letter to a friend, Bach mentioned Friederike Henriette and the absence of her interest in music as one of his reasons for leaving Köthen in 1723. However it was probably for financial demands by the Prussian military that the Prince of Anhalt-Köthen had less and less funds to spend on music. Henriette died in April of 1723, 14 months after her marrying Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen. Bach moved to Leipzig in May 1723.