Motets. Bach and his forefathers. St Andrews

St Salvator's Chapel, St Andrew's
Sunday, 08 May 2011, 7.30pm

J.S. Bach's motets were seen as the pinnacle of virtuosic and expressive choral writing even in the late eighteenth century - a time when most of the composer's output was entirely forgotten. Mozart famously enthused about 'Singet dem Herrn' and avidly studied its vocal parts, on a visit to Leipzig in 1789. Bach himself seems to have taken particular pride in the genre, distinguished by its use of singers on every line of music, with texts exclusively from the Bible or the Lutheran chorale tradition. Motets seem to have been cherished by the Bach family, and Sebastian was largely responsible for preserving the works of his elder relatives (it is likely that he requested J.C. Bach's 'Lieber Herr Gott' to be sung at his own funeral). By hearing three of his greatest motets side-by-side those of the previous generations we can hear how the family craft developed towards what later commentators saw as the type of art that somehow transcends its original context and use. All the works are superbly crafted, but we can also hear considerable expressive character in the music of the earlier Bachs, such as Bach’s cousin, Johann Michael (who was also his father-in-law) and particularly in the motets of Michael's brother, Johann Christoph. He was the organist in Eisenach at the time Sebastian lived there, and his music sounds almost Romantic in its extraordinarily direct expression.

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