“Classical Music - Musicians of All Saints and KAMUS

Few people will go down as looking a gift horse so disdainfully in the mouth as the 18th century aristocrat the Margrave of Brandenburg, who was presented in 1721 with a bound manuscript containing six lively concertos by the composer Johann Sebastian Bach. It seems that the Margrave never even thanked the composer for his gift, let alone got a chamber orchestra to perform the pieces, which went on to become a benchmark of Baroque music, and which are still being enjoyed by millions of devotees today. The concertos were written in one of the happiest period of the German composer’s life, as he worked as Kapellmeister in the town of Coethen, a place that was full of virtuoso musicians. It was a strange period for German music: the musicians had been sacked from the royal court by the music-hating Friedrich-Wilhelm I and found work with the Coethen’s music-loving patron Prince Leopold. Since the Margrave rejected Bach’s gift, it is likely that the composer himself presided over (and probably participated in) their first performance, in Coethen.

Tonight you can hear Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto number 3 performed by the Musicians of All Saints as opener of a lively and typically eclectic set. Also on the bill are Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, Dag Wiren’s Serenade, Lieu Tien Hua’s New Year’s Eve and Peter Copley’s A Copper Garland. The orchestra, conducted by Anthony Sherwood, will be joined this evening by KAMUS from Sweden (hence the inclusion of the Wiren serenade). AG