A LIVE RECORDING FROM THE BENEDICTINE MONASTERY AT MELK

NIKOLAUS HARNONCOURT CONDUCTS

AN ADVENT CONCERT OF MUSIC BY BACH

with the

Concentus Musicus Vienna

Arnold Schoenberg Choir

and soloists

Chrstine Schäfer, Anna Korondi, Bernada Fink,

Ian Bostridge and Christopher Maltman

This concert of sacred music celebrating the coming of Christmas was recorded at one of Austria’s finest baroque monasteries, situated at Melk. In the superb surroundings of an elegant hall featuring a resplendent painted ceiling, depicting devotional scenes, Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducts the renowned early music ensemble, Concentus Musicus Vienna, and the Arnold Schoenberg Choir in an all-Bach programme. The soloists are Christine Schäfer  and Anna Korondi (soprano), Bernada Fink (mezzo soprano), Ian Bostridge (tenor) and Christopher Maltman (bass).

The works performed are Bach’s Cantata BWV 61, “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland” (“Come Redeemer of the Gentiles”); Cantata BWV 147, “Herz und Mund” (“Heart and mouth and deed and life”); and the Magnificat in D major BWV 243.

One of the most popular of all Bach’s church cantatas, No. 147 is a meditation on receiving Jesus both into the womb of Mary and into the hearts of man. It contains the famous melody known as Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. Bach’s Magnificat is a musical setting of the Virgin Mary’s words of joy (“My soul doth magnify the Lord”) to her cousin Elizabeth, after she had conceived.