Freiburg Baroque Orchestra: Bach + Telemann

Johann Sebastian Bach:
Missa brevis in G major BWV 236

Georg Philipp Telemann:
Es ist das Heil uns kommen her TWV 1:494
Zwei Jünger gehen nach Emmaus TWV 1:738

Vox Luminis

Freiburger Barockorchester
Lionel Meunier, bass and conductor

Lent does not always have to be a Passion setting - especially by Johann Sebastian Bach -
, as there are countless other works by Baroque composers that focus on the suffering of Jesus Christ. In addition to Bach, these composers also include Georg Philipp Telemann, who left behind an incredible 1,750 cantatas, including the cantata cycle Geistliches Singen und Spielen, which Telemann wrote in Eisenach around 1710, later performed in Frankfurt and which contains a total of 72 cantatas for the church year.

The texts for most of the cantatas were written by Erdmann Neumeister, an important theologian and hymn writer of the 18th century. For Neumeister, music was not only of theological importance in church services, but also music for personal devotion. It is therefore not surprising that the cantatas from Telemann's collection are extremely varied, ranging from large-scale festive music to introverted, slenderly scored cantatas.

Lionel Meunier, artistic director of the Belgian vocal ensemble Vox Luminis, selected particularly varied cantatas by Telemann and a mass by Bach for this concert.