LES CHEMINS DE BACH : LE VOYAGE À LÜBECK

This concert recounts the prodigious journey that the young Johann Sebastian Bach undertook to meet the most fascinating musician of his time: Dietrich Buxtehude.

Maïlys de Villoutreys Soprano
Perrine Devillers Soprano
Lucile Richardot Mezzo-soprano
Antonin Rondepierre Tenor
Renaud Bres Bass
Manuel Walser Bass

Pygmalion Choir and Orchestra
Raphaël Pichon Conductor

In 1705, the twenty-year-old Bach temporarily left Arnstadt, where he worked as an organist, for a four-hundred-kilometre journey on foot to Lübeck, the Hanseatic capital of northern Germany. His goal was to meet the famous Dietrich Buxtehude, the most famous composer and organist of his time. At the age of sixty-eight, the master created his Abendmusiken, concert evenings featuring up to forty performers! His cantatas and organ works were played all over Germany, such was their quality and virtuosity. Bach's meeting with this mentor over a period of several weeks, the discovery of his exceptional playing and the opportunity to hear many new works from the Nordic school (particularly those by Nikolaus Bruhns, who was working not far away in Usum) enriched the young organist-composer, who left full of musical ideas and ambition. He showed the master some of his compositions, received his advice and perfected his style and playing with him. He also had in mind the works of his great-uncle Johann Christoph Bach, twenty years his senior and cantor in Eisenach: the most gifted of the family before Johann Sebastian.

The cantata BWV 4, dated 1707, is one of the first fruits of these Buxtehudian and Nordic influences on Bach: a masterpiece whose origins in Lübeck and in the music of North Germany and the Bachs' native Saxony are explored by Raphaël Pichon throughout this concert programme.

Produced by Opéra Royal / Château de Versailles Spectacles

This concert was recorded by France Musique and captured by Camera Lucida.