This Week in Classical Music: March 16, 2020.Bach at the time of pandemic.We’ll celebrate Johann Sebastian Bach’s 335th birthday this week: he was born in Eisenach on March 21st of 1685.Celebrations will be limited to classical music radio stations and Internet, as most physical venues around the country are closed due to the coronavirus epidemic.We all are surprised and perplexed by the speed with which the illness caused by the virus spreads around the world, but it wouldn’t be an unusual event for Bach: epidemics were regular in 18th century Germany, as they were in the rest of Europe and the world.In 1708-09 an epidemic of influenza hit Germany; who knows, maybe it was caused by a virus similar to Covid-19.Another flu epidemic happened in 1712 and yet another – in 1742.And in 1709-12 Germany was touched by a plague which hit the hardest in the northern countries of Europe, killing 300,000 to 400,000 people.As we know, Bach’s family wasn’t spared: he fathered 20 children, of which only 10 lived into adulthood. Death was often on Bach’s mind, but as a deeply religious person he was thinking of it more as salvation from the corrupt and sinful life on Earth, rather than an ultimate tragedy we think it is in our more secular age.Here’s Bach Cantata BWV 8, Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben? (Dearest God, when will I die?), composed in Leipzig in 1724.It’s performed by the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner in Santiago de Compostela, Spain in year 2000, where they were making their “Bach Cantata Pilgrimage Recordings.”You can read the poignant text of the cantata on the Bach Cantatas website.
Two Russian composers were also born this week: the supremely talented Modest Mussorgsky, born on March 21st of 1839, who died of alcoholism at the age of 42, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, born on March 18th of 1844.They were friends (Mussorgsky was the best man at Rimsky’s wedding ceremony).Rimsky was one of the composers who edited and complete some of the works Mussorgsky left unfinished, including his opera Khovanschina.He also created a version of Mussorgsky’s masterpiece Boris Godunov; this was the version performed in the Soviet Union for years. Mussorgsky’s own revised version of 1872 is typically performed in Europe and the US and lately the Bolshoi was also staging this version.
Bach at the time of pandemic, 2020
This Week in Classical Music: March 16, 2020. Bach at the time of pandemic. We’ll celebrate Johann Sebastian Bach’s 335th birthday this week: he was born in Eisenach on March 21st of 1685. Celebrations will be limited to classical music radio stations and Internet, as most
physical venues around the country are closed due to the coronavirus epidemic. We all are surprised and perplexed by the speed with which the illness caused by the virus spreads around the world, but it wouldn’t be an unusual event for Bach: epidemics were regular in 18th century Germany, as they were in the rest of Europe and the world. In 1708-09 an epidemic of influenza hit Germany; who knows, maybe it was caused by a virus similar to Covid-19. Another flu epidemic happened in 1712 and yet another – in 1742. And in 1709-12 Germany was touched by a plague which hit the hardest in the northern countries of Europe, killing 300,000 to 400,000 people. As we know, Bach’s family wasn’t spared: he fathered 20 children, of which only 10 lived into adulthood. Death was often on Bach’s mind, but as a deeply religious person he was thinking of it more as salvation from the corrupt and sinful life on Earth, rather than an ultimate tragedy we think it is in our more secular age. Here’s Bach Cantata BWV 8, Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben? (Dearest God, when will I die?), composed in Leipzig in 1724. It’s performed by the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner in Santiago de Compostela, Spain in year 2000, where they were making their “Bach Cantata Pilgrimage Recordings.” You can read the poignant text of the cantata on the Bach Cantatas website.
Two Russian composers were also born this week: the supremely talented Modest Mussorgsky, born on March 21st of 1839, who died of alcoholism at the age of 42, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, born on March 18th of 1844. They were friends (Mussorgsky was the best man at Rimsky’s wedding ceremony). Rimsky was one of the composers who edited and complete some of the works Mussorgsky left unfinished, including his opera Khovanschina. He also created a version of Mussorgsky’s masterpiece Boris Godunov; this was the version performed in the Soviet Union for years. Mussorgsky’s own revised version of 1872 is typically performed in Europe and the US and lately the Bolshoi was also staging this version.