Classical Preview: Impressive line-up as feast of Bach is served

Each week I ponder long and hard as which event I should write about. Then when I remember poor old Bach, who, for many long years, had to write a new cantata every week for the Sunday service, it puts my task into perspective.
By The Newsroom
Published 8th Oct 2010, 12:06 BST
Updated 8th Oct 2010, 12:06 BST

Not that his hard work gained him lasting recognition as a composer, for when you look back at his slim presence in the record catalogues of 50 years ago, you realise our present passion with everything Bach is a modern trend.

So when the Sheffield Bach Society came into existence just over 60 years ago it was with the aim of promoting his choral works.

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Simon Lindley's appointment as the society's conductor seeks to reinstate those innovate years with an on-going feast of Bach opening next Saturday. Five of his glorious cantatas are being performed, not all well-known but featuring the popular 51st, Jauchzet Gott in Allen Landen.

It features an impressive solo line-up, and still to come are performances of the Christmas Oratorio (November 16) and the complete St Matthew Passion (April 16), the two events surrounding the annual performance of Handel's Messiah. The season concludes with an evening of English choral works by Vaughan Williams, Dyson and Howells given in St Mark's Church, Broomhill (July 2).

Lindley also brings Bach cantatas to Leeds in a fortnight when the St Peter's Chamber Players and Singers present three cantatas in the Moravian Church in Fulneck near Pudsey. Admission is free with a retiring collection.

Sheffield Bach Society, Sheffield Cathedral, October 16, 7.30pm. Tickets at the door. St Peter's Chamber Players and Singers, Fulneck, October 22, 7pm. Free admission.

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