Johann Sebastian Bach - Johann Christoph Bach - Heinrich Bach - George Böhm

Christ lag in Todesbanden

BachPlus

Label: Evil Penguin
Format: CD
Barcode: 0608917721829

Catalog number: EPRC 0031
Releasedate: 07-06-19

- A unique recording due to the use of historical instruments, an organ, young singers/musicians
- Recorded taking into account current knowledge about HIPP (Historical Informed Performance Practice)
- Seldom recorded works by the Bach family and his great source of inspiration, Dietrich Buxtehude
- BachPlus uses the original cast for Bach’s cantata, including the doubling of the vocal parts with 3 trombones and 1 cornet.

Our fetishist regard for John Sebastian Bach as the pinnacle of Western art music obscures the fact that his talent was spawned by at least three generations of gifted predecessors. We celebrate this lineage by exploring the musical family archive Bach discovered in 1735. Among the hidden gems are intensely moving Geistliche Konzerte by his cousin Johann Christoph Bach, and the latter’s father Heinrich Bach. In his earliest preserved cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden, Johann Sebastian superbly imitates the polyphonic motet style of these foregoers, which was going out of fashion, though Bach seems to have cherished it enough to revisit the cantata on several occasions in later years. The Belgian ensemble BachPlus brings homage to Bach’s undying love of a dying art, in a recording which juxtaposes private devotion with protestant ecstasy.

Ich danke dir, Gott