| Lancette Arts Journal Founded in 2000 |
Music - Live Performances From our Archives |
October 2005 |
The International Bach Festival
runs to October 9 at various locations
By Alidë Kohlhaas
In the music world, no composer is placed higher on the pedestal than Johann Sebastian Bach. His name is familiar to most anyone, who even faintly knows anything about music. The name is associated mostly, however, with church music, and as Maestro Helmut Rilling stated in an e-mail interview, "Like no other composer he portrays the heritage of Christian faith." Yet, Bach also composed music that was not intended for playing at a church service, even though his more secular work more often than not also reminded mankind of the spiritual aspects of life by using text from Biblical sources.
This is very apparent in his Cantata, Gott ist mein König (God is my King), BWV 71, which was the subject of a combined lecture and performance of this work on October 3 at the University of Toronto's International Bach Festival. Composed to celebrate the inauguration of the Town Council of Mühlhausen by a 22-year-old Bach, it is both secular and spiritual in nature.
Maestro Rilling, who serves as the Nicholas Goldschmidt conductor-in-residence of the festival, now in its second year at the university's Faculty of Music, did a thorough job of explaining Bach's intentions in composing this early work. It is, by all appearances . . .
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