Five years ago, Michael Maul, director of the Leipzig Bach Festival, and music journalist Bernhard Schrammek launched the podcast series »Die Bach-Kantate mit Maul & Schrammek« (The Bach Cantata with Maul & Schrammek) on MDR. The two have long been enthralled by the 200 sacred cantatas of their hero. Now, week after week on the »Bach Channel«, they continue to find good reasons to fall to their knees in verbal adoration of their hero’s art.
And because Hamburg was the place of longing for Johann Sebastian Bach and his sons, the two officially certified Bach nerds are coming to the Elbe to congratulate Bach’s second son, Carl Philipp Emanuel on the occasion of his 312th birthday (March 8, 1714) and to dedicate themselves, together with their audience and listeners, in a Hanseatic way this time, to the most touching but also funniest Bach moments during their five-year journey through the sea of Bach cantatas. And the two will highlight in Hamburg that Bach wrote not only cantatas for the church, but also incredibly great secular cantatas, known as »dramma per musica«. Bach was accused of his Passions being too dramatic and passionate, for example...
As Hamburg celebrates the 350th anniversary of the former opera house on Gänsemarkt in 2028, which was financed by the city’s citizens in the 17th century as a European showcase project, it makes sense to turn our attention to the »secular« Bach. If Johann Sebastian had been appointed organist at Hamburg’s main church, St. Jacobi, in 1720, would he also have made contact with the Gänsemarkt Opera? Messrs. Reincken, Keiser, Mattheson, Handel, and Telemann not only wrote hundreds of magnificent Baroque operas for this resplendent opera house, they also wrote genuine opera history.
If the Gänsemarktoper had still been in operation when CPE Bach became Hamburg’s music director in 1768, would he also have composed operas for this house? And what would have happened if Johann Sebastian Bach had converted from Protestantism to Catholicism and been appointed court conductor at the Dresden court of Augustus the Strong instead of Johann Adolf Hasse? The Dresden Court Opera House, with its 2,000 seats, was one of the largest opera houses in Europe at the time. Perhaps Bach might even have surpassed George Frideric Handel as a Baroque opera composer...
But these are, of course, all hypotheses that are worth considering. And best of all: the audience can vote on which pieces of live music performed at this event are truly the Bach arias for a desert island, and then listen reverently as they are performed live by top-class guests led by Bach specialist Hansjörg Albrecht. Maul and Schrammek themselves will of course also be picking up their instruments!
But be warned: both are terrible at hiding their enthusiasm for their master’s musical wonders of the world. Highly contagious!
PERFORMERS
Michael Maul talk
Bernhard Schrammek talk
Hansjörg Albrecht harpsichord
