Arnstadt & Mülhausen
Circa 1600 · Live Oak Baroque Orchestra
Friday, May 12 at 8 P.M. & Saturday, May 13 at 3 P.M.
Bachgrounder lecture 35 minutes before each performance
People tend to think of Bach as a serious older man, as in the famous portrait of him on the cover of our brochure. But of course he wasn’t always older! At the dawn of his career, when he lived in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen, he was dashing, full of beans, constantly discovering, questing, pushing limits and even getting into trouble. And his music! There seem to have been no limits for the brilliant young cantor from Eisenach. We’ll perform four of his early cantatas, in which he experimented with styles and moods and orchestrations: the famous Cantata 4: Christ lag in Todesbanden; Cantata 131: Aus der Tiefe, based upon Psalm 130; Cantata 150: Nach dir, Herr; and the delightful Cantata 196: Der Herr denket an uns.
Circa 1600 · Live Oak Baroque Orchestra
Friday, May 12 at 8 P.M. & Saturday, May 13 at 3 P.M.
Bachgrounder lecture 35 minutes before each performance
People tend to think of Bach as a serious older man, as in the famous portrait of him on the cover of our brochure. But of course he wasn’t always older! At the dawn of his career, when he lived in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen, he was dashing, full of beans, constantly discovering, questing, pushing limits and even getting into trouble. And his music! There seem to have been no limits for the brilliant young cantor from Eisenach. We’ll perform four of his early cantatas, in which he experimented with styles and moods and orchestrations: the famous Cantata 4: Christ lag in Todesbanden; Cantata 131: Aus der Tiefe, based upon Psalm 130; Cantata 150: Nach dir, Herr; and the delightful Cantata 196: Der Herr denket an uns.
Bernd Göbel, Bach as a Young Man, 1985.
“[Bach was] reproved for having hitherto made many curious variationes on the chorales, and mingled with it many strange tones, and for the fact that the congregation has been much confused thereby. [Also was] reproved for going into the wine cellar on the preceding Sunday during the sermon, [and for] inviting an unfamiliar maiden into the choir loft and allowing her to make music there. —From proceedings of the Arnstadt Consistory, February 1706