john eliot gardiner bach cantata pilgrimage

Jesu, meine Freude was one of the first pieces I ever conducted, at the age of 15. He said, ‘My God, that’s something special.’ Those motets have been my yearly companions ever since I was a kid. He said, ‘This is something that one can learn from.’ Legend has it that he asked for the score, and there was none, just a series of parts so he put the eight parts on the floor and, being Mozart, he was able to piece it together and read it in his head. Thomas singing ‘Singet dem Herrn,’ which is the most ebullient of the Bach motets. Mozart, who was traveling through Leipzig in 1789, heard the choir of St. But the motets somehow stood their place in the musical literature, particularly in the repertoire of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. Matthew Passion in 18, long after Bach’s death. Mendelssohn was the first to revive the St. Nearly all the cantatas were forgotten the B Minor Mass was forgotten for many years.

The Bach motets are rare moments of music that have survived since his death. Who needs pills to lift the spirits when we have the six Bach motets and John Eliot Gardiner’s Monteverdi Choir to sing them?” The Evening Standard observed: “Precision, purity of tone, strong rhythmic definition, clear diction…Bach’s Motets are ideally suited to the Monteverdi Choir.” The Guardian added, “The Monteverdi Choir was on supreme form.”Īs well as a rich and storied lineage, the motets also have great personal significance to Gardiner. John Smith’s Square in London recorded for the motets release, The Times said: “If all the world’s depressed people had somehow been squeezed into St John’s to hear this concert, the pharmaceutical companies would be out of business. The Monteverdi Choir was recently voted the world’s best choir by Gramophone, and Le Monde declared: “If there were a Nobel Prize for choirs, the Monteverdi Choir should be its laureate.” Reviewing concerts at St. The Bach Motets recording follows in the footsteps of Gardiner and company’s epic, widely revered series of Bach’s sacred cantatas on the same label. Sir John Eliot Gardiner – the recipient of more Gramophone Awards than any other living artist and recently inducted as one of 50 inaugural members of the magazine’s Hall of Fame – and the Monteverdi Choir have released their new recording of Johann Sebastian Bach motets on their SDG label. The CD will be available in the US on June 12 (it is already available in Europe and on the Monteverdi Choir’s web site). John Eliot Gardiner releases recording of “Bach Motets” on June 12

John eliot gardiner bach cantata pilgrimage