Gardiner and Bach's Cantatas
Synopsis
Today we celebrate hopeful beginnings \u2014 and happy endings.
In Leipzig, on New Year\u2019s Day 1724, Johann Sebastian Bach led the first performance of \u201cSinget dem Herrn ein Neues Lied\u201c (or \u201cSing to the Lord a New Song,\u201d in English) \u2014 a work we now know as his Cantata 190.
About 200 of Bach\u2019s church cantatas have survived. In 2000, British conductor John Eliot Gardiner decided to perform and record of all of them in the space of one liturgical year in historical churches in Europe and America. Starting on Christmas Day 1999, in Weimar, Germany, Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists set out to do just that.
It was an ambitious undertaking, and Gardiner said, \u201cJust as in planning to scale a mountain or cross an ocean, you can make meticulous provision, calculate your route and get all the equipment in order, in the end you have to deal with whatever the elements \u2014 both human and physical \u2013 throw at you at any given moment.\u201d
Gardiner\u2019s Bach Cantata pilgrimage came to its triumphant conclusion on New Year\u2019s Eve in 2000 at St. Bartholomew\u2019s Church in New York City, with a performance of Cantata 190.
Music Played in Today's Program
J.S. Bach (1685-1750): Cantata No. 190; Monteverdi Choir; English Baroque Soloists; John Eliot Gardiner, cond. SDG 137