A wedding in Zion

We’re closing this cycle of Cantata Trail sessions with what’s possibly Bach’s best-known cantata, “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme”. It’s interesting that given the methodical approach that we’ve been taking to exploring JSB’s cantata production, we can look at BWV 140 and place it in context according to several of its characteristics, regardless of […]

WTC II – B minor

We made it full circle! We’re closing out our journey through the second book of the Well-Tempered Clavier with the final installment, the prelude and fugue in B minor, in the 1962 reading by the “icon” of the historically informed performance movement, Gustav Leonhard. B minor, as the comfortable, two-sharp key that it is, projects […]

God help the incoming!

Earlier this year, we discussed Cantata 120 and mentioned how Town Council inaugurations in Leipzig provided Bach with a lucrative opportunity to write a yearly cantata. Here is another such piece, written in 1731, to be performed, as it was customary, in Nikolaikirche on August 27, 1731. The cantata saw two additional performances in later […]