Johann Sebastian Bach and the North German Baroque

bach portrait

Bach possessed an amazing and oft-discussed ability to synthesise the musical styles of France and Italy into his own compositions.But he was also undoubtedly the grateful benefactor of a thriving tradition of North German musical creativity.These influences manifest themselves in the recurrent Protestant musical forms of Bach’s organ chorales,chorale preludes and fantasies,and chorale fugues.His suites for solo cello contain clear traces of the north German unaccompanied school of playing looking back to Austrians Johannes Schmelzer and Ignaz Franz Biber.In the field of vocal composition Bach drew upon a long and often archaic tradition to create some of his most expansive and masterly choral works that draw extensively on a German style.

During this Festival, leading Australian and international performers will explore these various facets of the rich musical traditions found in Bach’s backyard, both as a tribute to those influences and also to the genius of J.S. Bach in his continuation, reinvigoration and perfection of the many compositional genres in North Germany.