Royal Academy of Music - Kohn Foundation Bach Cantata Series

Christus, der ist mein Leben is a Trinity cantata which Bach first performed at Leipzig in 1723. Its most impressive feature lies in the superbly-constructed opening chorus whose complexity of design embraces two different hymn melodies and some strikingly bold key changes. A third hymn melody is contained in a solo soprano movement of great beauty while a tenor aria affords a prominent role to Bach’s favoured imagery of the Leichenglocken (funeral bells), evoked in pizzicato string writing. A fourth chorale, no less, rounds off this highly original cantata.

Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal is an Easter piece dating from the mid to late 1720s. Its extended opening sinfonia may be at once recognised as an adaptation of music that eventually was to become the first movement of the great D minor Harpsichord Concerto (BWV 1052). In the cantata, though, the dazzling solo part is written for organ. The initial chorus draws on the same concerto but this time on its slow movement upon which Bach superimposes a four-strand vocal texture.

One feels certain that as the series gains its momentum over the coming years, the Royal Academy of Music’s ambitious undertaking is going to become a central feature of London’s cultural and religious life. - The Tablet, February 2009.

Book for several concerts in the Royal Academy of Music - Kohn Foundation Bach Cantatas series for discounts of up to 30%.