• Daniel Auchinchloss tenor
• Stephen Varcoe baritone
• Philippa Hyde, Claire Tomlin soprano
• Psalmody
• Essex Baroque Orchestra
• directed by Peter Holman

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), J.S. Bach’s second son, composed twenty-one settings of the Passion for performance during Lent in Hamburg; he moved there from Berlin in 1768, succeeding Telemann as civic director of music. Nearly all of them were believed to have been destroyed during World War II until the manuscripts were rediscovered in Kiev in 1999.

The 1769 St Matthew Passion is the first and most elaborate of the series, and was given a number of performances in Hamburg churches during February and March, ending on Good Friday, 24 March.  Like all German passion settings (including those by J.S. Bach), it is a pasticcio to some extent: it borrows some crowd choruses, chorales and recitative sections from his father’s St Matthew Passion, and the first chorus from his own setting of the Magnificat.  However, it is much shorter, more dramatic and generally more modern in style than J.S. Bach’s setting, with an orchestra including horns, obbligato bassoons and timpani. 

We believe that this fine work has never been performed in Britain, so this concert should be a notable occasion, not to be missed.

The performing material used for tonight’s performance is based on the critical edition Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach:  The Complete Works (www.cpebach.org), and was made available by the publisher, the Packard Humanities Insitute of Los Altos, California.