Bach und seine Vorgänger

The sounds of God in the Lutheran tradition... with the International Bach Academy at the Liederhalle Stuttgart

In his cantatas, Johann Sebastian Bach creates sacred music with great expressive power and a very intimate connection between text and music. He adds modern, operatic forms such as aria and recitative to the old compositional style of polyphony, but Bach cannot be understood without the Lutheran tradition from which he came. In the 17th century, great masters of counterpoint and sacred polyphony such as Schütz, Schein and Hammerschmidt, who enjoyed a high reputation, worked in Saxony. We therefore place Bach in front of the mirror of his predecessors, with their similarities and differences. The cantatas for the Reformation festival (BWV 80), the council election (BWV 29), the pain of an emotionally charged lament in the choral cantata BWV 78 or a magnificent praise to God (BWV 137) show very different facets of Bach's music and, together with the motets of the earlier generation, form an organic overall picture full of deep emotions.

Hammerschmidt "Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied"
Bach cantata "Jesu, der du meine Seele" BWV 78
Schein "Siehe, nach Trost war mir sehr bange"
Bach cantata "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" BWV 80
Schütz "Herr, auf dich traue ich" SWV 377
...and more