Three projects shedding light on the sacred music of J.S. Bach are nearing completion. The first consists of an epic 25-year project to record all the composer’s vocal works – passions, masses, motets and more than 200-odd cantatas – in electrifying performances supplemented by lectures and workshops. At the helm is a Swiss choral conductor renowned for his improvisatory skills – and surely the only baroque specialist to have played Sidney Bechet on a chamber organ.
The second project is a guide to Bach’s church cantatas tailored at ‘cultural Christians’; that is, music lovers intrigued but intimidated by their Lutheran theology, unsure how to approach this treasure trove of, at a conservative estimate, more than 100 masterpieces of western civilisation. It’s in three volumes, the first of which will be published this spring. The author is an English grandmother who, despite never having held an academic post, is one of the great musical polymaths of our time.
The third and most eccentric project is the brainchild of a pianist from Monaco who describes himself as ‘a virtuoso transcriber of pop music (video game, japanime, metal)’. He is recording all 371 of Bach’s four-part harmonisations of Lutheran chorales on a Steinway piano. I defy anyone to listen to more than a dozen at a stretch without getting bored. But take them one at a time and you’ll be amazed.
The most prominent of these Bach entrepreneurs is Rudolf Lutz, artistic director of the J.S. Bach-Stiftung Choir and Orchestra in St Gallen, Switzerland. But even he isn’t as famous as he deserves to be. Since 2006 he has led monthly concerts in exquisite Protestant churches at which just one cantata is heard – twice.
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