Orchestra and Choir of the Age of Enlightenment: St Matthew Passion

Artists

Concertgebouw

The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam was built as a result of a public campaign aimed at financing a new Philharmonic hall. A grand Neoclassical concert hall topped with a symbolic Apollo´s lyre, it opened in 1888. In the late 20th century the Concertgebouw was renovated in order to improve the acoustics and add more space for visitors. The magnificent organ, after almost a century of service, was also restored and modernised. The Concertgebouw hosts around 600 concerts every year, ranging from big symphonic performances to jazz and pop concerts. Conveniently located at the beautiful Museumplein (Museum Square) with the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh museum right next to it, everyone will find something to their taste in one of the finest concert halls in the world!

Johann Sebastian Bach

The name Bach and the word musician had long been synonyms in Germany as the world saw 56 musicians from this kin. But it was Johann Sebastian Bach, a genius composer and virtuoso organ player, who shed lustre on his family name. He was born on th 31st of March 1685 in Eisenach, a small town in Thuringia. At the age of 10 he became an orphan and was brought up by his elder brother Johann Christoph, who was an organist in a neighbouring town. His brother was the one to teach music to the young Johann Sebastian. Later he moved to Luneburg where he attended a church school and mastered the techniques of playing violin, viola, piano and organ by the age of 17. Besides that, Bach was a choir singer and later after his voice broke he became a chanter’s assistant. In 1703 Bach was hired as a court musician in the chapel of Duke Johann Ernst III. He earned such a good reputation there that he was later invited to Arnstadt to be an organist at the New Church, where he wrote his best organ works. In 1723 he moved to Leipzig to be a chantor at St. Thomas Church where he stayed until his death of a stroke in 1750. In the year of his death he had undergone unsuccessful eye surgery which lead him to lose his eyesight. During that strenuous time his second wife Anna Magdalena helped him to write his last musical pieces. Bach’s artistic legacy is vast. He created compositions in all genres of the time: oratorias, cantatas, masses, motets, music for organ, piano and violin.