12th Night Festival: Bach at One
The Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Trinity Baroque Orchestra perform the cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach each week as part of “Bach at One.” A devout Lutheran, Bach composed 200 cantatas using both sacred and secular texts. Many of those cantatas are heard in churches around the world every Sunday, but through Bach at One, your Wednesday lunch hour can be enriched by these timeless works. The New York Times has praised the “dramatic vigor” of Bach performances by Trinity artists, not to mention “the buoyant, elegantly shaped orchestral sound” and “the lithe, immaculate and colorful singing of the chorus.”
This week, as part of the Twelfth Night Festival: Time's Arrow:
J. S. Bach – Prelude and Fugue in E Minor, BWV 548
BWV 215 Preise dein Glücke, gesegnetes Sachsen
BWV 232 – Mass in B-minor: Sanctus – Osanna – Dona nobis pacem
Trinity Baroque Orchestra and The Choir of Trinity Wall Street; Julian Wachner, conductor
Boasting an "engrossing" and "enviable variety of repertory" (The New York Times), Trinity Wall Street's Twelfth Night Festival returns in 2015-16 to celebrate the twelve days of the nativity with a full program of mostly free events—at St. Paul's Chapel and Trinity Church—from December 26 through January 6. As Trinity has become an epicenter for both early and new music, this year's festival, aptly subtitled "Time's Arrow," recovers the past as composers reach for the musical unknown. The juxtaposition of music spanning the past millennium—from Handel's Messiah and Bach cantatas to the premieres of works by Daniel Felsenfeld and David Lang—is sure to have a lasting impact on returning and new concertgoers alike.