Description: |
 One of Bach’s earliest duties after his appointment at Leipzig was to provide a grand setting of the Magnificat for Christmas Day 1723. This has become one of his most popular works: a dramatic mix of jubilant choruses with celebratory trumpets and drums and gentler numbers exploiting the flutes and oboes alongside the vocal soloists to reflect the changing moods of the Magnificat text.
The next few years were hugely productive for Bach as he wrote several cycles of cantatas. The Easter Oratorio was first performed on Easter Sunday 1725, almost exactly 300 years ago. This and the splendid Ascension Oratorio (which we sang two years ago) are not performed nearly as often as the St John and Matthew Passions, but they are
splendid works.
Composer and scholar W G Whittaker founded the Newcastle Bach Choir primarily to perform the Bach cantatas, largely unknown back in 1915, and this remains an important part of the choir’s mission. Am Abend aber desselbingen Sabbats, BWV 42 was first performed a week after the Easter Oratorio and tells the story of Jesus’ appearance to the
disciples after his resurrection. It displays Bach’s masterly writing for woodwind, in both the opening sinfonia and the moving alto aria, while the final bass aria shows Bach at his most exuberant. Cantata 50 is a single 8-part chorus. Its attribution to Bach is questionable, but it is a tour de force for choir and orchestra, complete with jubilant trumpets and drums.
We welcome back four soloists who thrilled the audience at our St John Passion last March: Charlotte La Thrope (soprano), David Allsopp (alto), Hugo Hymas (tenor) and Ben Kazez (bass). They will be joined in the Magnificat by Laura Oldfield, a recent Newcastle University music graduate, to sing the second soprano solos, and by the superb period instrumentalists of Newcastle Baroque. |