Welcome to Harmonia Uncut, the podcast that takes you to early music performances you may have missed. I’m Wendy Gillespie and in this podcast, we’re going to listen to a Bach cantata at St. Thomas Church - that would be St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Bloomington, Indiana, where on February 26, 2017 “Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam,” BWV 7, was the fifth of six cantatas presented in the seventh season of the Bloomington Bach Cantata Project.
The BBCP is a collaboration of students, faculty and alumnae of the Jacobs School of Music with visiting artists and local early music professionals. Its mission is to perform cantatas of JS Bach in a manner modeled on Bach’s own performances. Each cantata has a different Music Director, often one of the performers, and it has become the practice of the Bloomington Bach Cantata Project to perform each cantata twice, with a lecture in between the two performances that often changes the way we hear the piece and indeed the way it is played, the second time. An extremely unscientific survey interestingly reveals that second performances tend to be very, very slightly slower than the first!
Time does not allow for both performances of BWV 7 on this podcast. We’ll hear the first performance of “Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam” and the lecture that followed.
MUSIC/INTERVIEW
We’ve heard the first performance of “Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam” BWV 7 by the Bloomington Bach Cantata Project on Feb 26, 2017 at St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Bloomington IN. The Music Director was James Andrewes, and David Rohlfing recorded the proceedings. Professor Daniel Melamed, now Director of the project, delivered the lecture and kindly shared this performance with us.
The BBCP continues to offer six cantatas a year to the entire community at no charge, supported by the Historical Performance and Musicology Departments of the Jacobs School of Music, Bloomington Early Music, St. Thomas Church, and by individual donors and volunteers.
We’re always interested in hearing your thoughts about this podcast. You can find Harmonia on Facebook, or leave a comment or question any time by visiting harmonia early music dot org. This has been Harmonia Uncut, and I’m WG, thanks so much for joining me!
