This year’s Tilford Bach Festival celebrates the 300th anniversary one of the great landmarks in the life of the composer – his arrival as Kantor of the Thomasschule at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, where he remained until his death in 1750.
The post became vacant on the death of Johann Kuhnau the previous year. Leipzig at the time was a major trading and cultural centre, its university already more than 300 years old, and the post of Kantor was an important one, carrying with it additional responsibilities as Director of Music in the town’s two principal churches, the Nikolaikirche and the Paulinerkirche.
But as with many things related to the life and career of Johann Sebastian Bach, his accession to the post was not a smooth one, being the city’s third choice. The selection committee first offered it to two other composers, both with strong Leipzig connections: Bach’s friend Telemann, who used the offer to negotiate a salary increase for his position in Hamburg; and Christoph Graupner, a formerstudent of Kuhnau, who likewise used the offer to improve his existing situation in Darmstadt.
Eighteenth century Leipzig was highly cosmopolitan in terms of its musical life, and it was exposed to the latest musical trends from across the continent. Appropriately, the Festival opens on Friday, June 16th, with a group of Virtuoso Concertos by Bach's contemporaries, performed by the London Handel Players – Rachel Brown (flute), Silas Wollston (organ) and Adrian Butterfield (violin). The programme will include works by Handel and Vivaldi as well as by CPE Bach and Quantz.
Third Choice is the theme for the Saturday lunchtime concert on June 17th. This will feature works by Telemann and Graupner, a rare opportunity to experience the local musical milieu in which Bach was very much engaged. This will include concertos by both composers, as well as Telemann’s Grillen Symphonie and Water Music, performed by students from the Royal College of Music.
The Saturday evening concert on June 17th is entitled Trios for Two, and features Bach’s Sonatas for Obbligato Harpsichord and Violin. Silas Wollston, harpsichord, and Adrian Butterfield, violin, will perform. Their new recording of these beautiful works has just been released by SOMM records. This promises to be an evening of exquisite chamber music.
The Festival ends on Sunday, June 18th, with choral music from Bach’s inaugural year in Leipzig. He composed cantatas every week in 1723 from his arrival at the end of May, and Cantata 75, Die Elenden sollen essen, is one of his larger-scale examples. At Christmas that year he composed his wonderful setting of the Magnificat which has become so deservedly popular.
In 2023, for the 71
st Tilford Bach Festival, music returns to All Saints, Tilford, as the roof is now repaired. The Festival committee once again thanks our friends at Grayshott for hosting it last year.
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