St Thomas’’s Boys Choir: |Cantatas for Passiontide 4/10

The liturgical year with Johann Sebastian Bach: Rondeau Production and Deutschlandradio Kultur are currently releasing a ten-disc CD series with Thomanerchor Leipzig (St Thomas’s Boys Choir Leipzig). The choir presents selected cantatas for the liturgical year in new, vibrant recordings. The music for the liturgy holds a very special place at St Thomas’s Church Leipzig: even today, the church’s boys choir and the Gewandhausorchester (Gewandhaus Orchestra) perform a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach every week. The three cantatas recorded on this disc form part of the first cycle of cantatas which Johann Sebastian Bach presented to the congregation of St Thomas Leipzig in 1723. The cantatas Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe (BWV 22) and Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn (BWV 23) formed part of Bach’s audition for the post of cantor held by the city councillors of Leipzig on 7 February 1723, Estomihi Sunday. The texts of these two cantatas from Bach’s application portfolio tell of Christ’s decision to enter into Jerusalem, and of the healing of the blind man. Himmelskönig, sei willkommen (BWV 128) is the oldest cantata recorded here. It was written for performance at Weimar on Palm Sunday 1714 and sets to music the Gospel of that day, narrating Christ’s triumphant entrance into Jerusalem.