Baroque
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So closely do I, an organist, associate the first Schübler Chorale (BWV 645) with Advent, that I always find myself surprised to remember – even though I know I have known it for a long time – that the cantata on which it is based (BWV 140) was written not for Advent Sunday, but for the Read more
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The 20th of August 1724 was a Sunday, and as was his wont the cantor of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig – someone you may well have heard of, J Sebastian Bach – had composed a cantata based on an existing chorale which had resonances with the readings of the day, in this case the parable Read more
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An Ursuline nun of Novara,Name: Isabella Leonarda,Wrote music and song,And thought it not wrongTo devote to our mater beata. Indeed, many of Leonarda’s works carry a double dedication to our Lady and to someone whose funding or other such secular patronage she might have sought on behalf of her convent. She came from a prominent Read more
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Another composer who is likely to have been awaited by readers of a blog with this title is the great J Sebastian Bach, mountain of the North German musical landscape and foundation stone of much teaching of music theory. Ash Wednesday gives me an excuse to return to a set work from my A Level Read more
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Élizabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre had been recognised in the court of the Sun King himself as a talented musician before her marriage, to organist Marin de la Guerre, had taken her away from Versailles and back to Paris. There she had maintained a musical career alongside her husband’s, and even had an opera performed Read more
Theology in Music 