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On Bach's Farm

Mark Seow explores the links between Bach's music and the subject of farming - not only of the soil but also of the heart and the soul.

Bach’s Germany was an agrarian society. Just beyond Leipzig’s city walls, farmers worked the land to grow crops that sustained its citizens. Some of Bach’s music explicitly engages with farming. Its rustic oomph and repetitive motifs call to mind the manual toil of digging. John Eliot Gardiner even described the texture of one Bach cantata as β€œwarm topsoil, fertile and well irrigated”. Yet devotional writings of Bach’s time make it clear that farming was something not just done out on the fields. Instead all Lutherans were to be farmers of sorts: they were to plough the β€œsoil” of their hearts so to receive the Word of God and bring it to fruition.

The notion that scripture was a type of seed pervaded eighteenth-century thought, and Bach was intimate with this kind of corporeal agricultural. In this episode, violinist and member of Chineke!, Mark Seow explores how the cultivation of Lutheran hearts as if they were farmland urge us to rehear much-loved moments of Bach, including movements from his Christmas Oratorio and the St Matthew Passion.

Available now

17 minutes

Last on

Sun 21 Feb 2021 14:00

Music Played

  • George Frideric Handel

    Messiah: Pifa (Pastoral symphony)

    Ensemble: Academy for Ancient Music Berlin. Conductor: Justin Doyle.
    • PENTATONE.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Christmas Oratorio BWV.248: Sinfonia

    Ensemble: English Baroque Soloists. Conductor: Sir John Eliot Gardiner.
    • ARCHIV.
  • Antonio Vivaldi

    Concerto in F major RV.293, Op.8`3 (L'Autunno): Allegro

    Performer: Adrian Chandler. Ensemble: La Serenissima.
    • AVIE.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Gleichwie der Regen und Schnee vom Himmel fΓ€llt, BWV.18 (Sinfonia)

    Orchestra: Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. Conductor: Ton Koopman.
    • CHALLENGE CLASSICS.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Gleichwie der Regen und Schnee vom Himmel fΓ€llt, BWV.18

    Singer: Barbara Schlick. Singer: Christoph PrΓ©gardien. Singer: Klaus Mertens. Orchestra: Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. Choir: Amsterdam Baroque Choir. Conductor: Ton Koopman.
    • CHALLENGE CLASSICS.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Wir mΓΌssen durch viel TrΓΌb BWV.146: Ich sΓ€e meine ZΓ€hren

    Performer: Marten Root. Singer: Brigitte Geller. Ensemble: English Baroque Soloists. Conductor: Sir John Eliot Gardiner.
    • SDG.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Ach, lieben Christen, seid getrost BWV.114: Kein Frucht das Weizenkornlein bring

    Ensemble: Bach Collegium Japan. Conductor: Masaaki Suzuki.
    • BIS.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Ach, lieben Christen, seid getrost BWV.114: Du machst, o Tod, mir nun nicht fern

    Ensemble: Bach Collegium Japan. Conductor: Masaaki Suzuki.
    • BIS.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Christmas Oratorio, BWV.248: Schliesse, mein Herze

    Performer: Ryo Terakado. Singer: Yoshikazu Mera. Ensemble: Bach Collegium Japan. Conductor: Masaaki Suzuki.
    • BIS.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    St. Matthew Passion BWV.244: Mache dich, mein Herze

    Singer: Matthew Brook. Ensemble: Dunedin Consort. Conductor: John Butt.
    • LINN.
  • Anonymous

    Matais de incΓͺndios

    Singer: Martha McLorinan. Singer: Thomas Hobbs. Choir: Ex Cathedra. Ensemble: Ex Cathedra Baroque Orchestra. Conductor: Jeffrey Skidmore.
    • Brazilian Adventures.
    • Hyperion Records.
    • 1.

Broadcast

  • Sun 21 Feb 2021 14:00

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