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Complete Bach Cantatas Vol. 2
Johann Sebastian Bach

Complete Bach Cantatas Vol. 2

Ton Koopman / The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir

Label: Challenge Classics
Format: CD
Barcode: 0608917220223
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Catalog number: CC 72202
Releasedate: 01-05-03
  • The total of the secular and church cantatas that he wrote before he accepted his post at the Thomaskirche just fit on 3 sets of 3 CDs each
  • This volume is the second set of pre-Leipzig cantatas, and also contains two of the three existant secular cantatas from that same period
In the autumn of 1713, Bach was invited to apply for the post of organist and music director at the Marktkirche in Halle in succession to Handel's teacher, Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow. Bach was honoured to accept the invitation and in doing so made it clear that he was keen to extend his activities. Under Zachow, who had created a respectable repertory of sacred works of the most varied genres, including a large number of church cantatas, music in Halle had flourished and reached a level that offered Bach an area of responsibility that he evidently found attractive. This was especially true of the cantata, then the most modern sacred genre, the essential formal elements of which - recitative and aria - had been taken over from Italian opera. Many of the cantatas written by Bach before he became Thomaskantor in Leipzig are now lost. The total of the secular and church cantatas that he wrote before he accepted his post at the Thomaskirche just fit on 3 sets of 3 CDs each. This volume is the second set of pre-Leipzig cantatas, and also contains two of the three existant secular cantatas from that same period. These are 'Amore traditore' and what remains of a humoristic cantata, now called 'Quodlibet'. Some scholars are of the opinion that Bach's authorship of 'Amore Traditore' is questionable, but who else could have written this unbelievably beautiful and endearing 3-movement cantata to an Italian text?