Bach: Cantatas Nos. 82, 202 "Wedding" & 208 "Hunt"

Featuring

David Thomas
Andrew Parrott
Dame Emma Kirkby
Roy Goodman
Jennifer Smith
Simon Davies

Michael George
Taverner Players
The Parley of Instruments
Johann Sebastian Bach

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Composer Biography

Bach's position at Cöthen (1717-1723) was so eminent and well-paid that his later, less respected and harder-worked role in Leipzig must have been difficult to bear.

Interpretation

The recording of the 'Hunt Cantata' aims to recreate a 1716 performance, using one instrument per string part and a small cello or violone grosso for the bass lines, reflecting the likely size of Bach's ensemble at Weimar.

Recording & Production

This recording follows a theory by the late Professor Thurston Dart, suggesting that Bach's 'Hunt Cantata' and an early version of Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 might have been performed together for Duke Christian's birthday.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Bach, like the 18th-century English novelist and clergyman Laurence Sterne, believed that if music for secular purposes was of high artistic quality, it was equally suitable for religious contexts.

Composition History

The numbering of Bach's cantatas, established by the Bach Gesellschaft edition in the 19th century, bears no relation to their chronological order of composition.

Compositional Technique

Bach himself preferred the term 'concerto' for works for voices and instruments, reserving 'cantata' for pieces modeled on the Italian secular cantata form, which typically featured only recitatives and arias for one voice and continuo.

Composition History

Bach often reused his secular music in church cantatas; for example, he used parts of the 'Hunt Cantata' in his Whitsun cantata, BWV68, and a cantata for the Feast of St Michael and All Angels, BWV149.