Ruth Leon recommends… Bach Cantatas – Magnificat – Solomon’s Knot

Bach Cantatas – Magnificat – Solomon’s Knot

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Here’s a wonderfully Christmassy concert to set your holiday season alight. Solomon’s Knot, a huge and accomplished vocal and instrumental collective, perform two of Bach’s Cantatas and his Magnificat, all first performed exactly 300 years ago, at Christmas 1723.

At that time,  Johan Sebastian Bach  was the Thomaskantor, or Director of Church Music, of St. Thomas’ Church in Leipzig. He composed a staggering amount of music for St.Thomas’ and four other associated churches during his tenure in Leipzig, including more than 300 cantatas, a new one for each Sunday, collected in annual cycles, and additional music for all church-related events throughout the year.

He was also required to teach singing and Latin to the students of St Thomas’ School, although he dodged the Latin chore by using senior students as deputies. For these cantatas and other large-scale works, Bach drew the soprano and alto choristers from the school and the tenors and basses from elsewhere in Leipzig. Performing at weddings and funerals provided extra income. Despite a stormy relationship with his bosses, he remained in his Leipzig post until his death in 1750, although not without his many enemies trying to unseat him.

The vocal and instrumental collective Solomon’s Knot was founded in London in 2008 with a mission to communicate the full power of 17th- and 18th-century music as directly as possible.

What began a decade ago as a promise never to lose the joy of performing, to blow the dust off early music and break down the barriers of classical music has evolved into Solomon’s Knot’s reputation today: direct communication, adventurous programming and bold trademark performances, now allied with, and performing regularly at London’s Wigmore Hall.

​Notably, this huge group, (24 performers crammed onto Wigmore Hall’s less than capacious stage), performs without a conductor, the singers by heart.

Music by JS Bach currently forms a major focus of the ensemble’s activities, performed without scores or a conductor. Here two cantatas and the composer’s early version (including various Christmas interpolations) of the Magnificat are selected, all dating from the year 1723.
O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort BWV60
Wachet! betet! betet! wachet! BWV70
Magnificat in E flat BWV243a with Christmas interpolations

The video will be available on demand for 90 days after the date of the broadcast which was Dec 7.

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