Concert and Lecture: "Gotha, Bach and Bach's Passion Oratorios"

Music has always been heard at the Gotha court, even in the time of Johann Sebastian Bach, who is documented to have visited Gotha twice (1711 and 1717). The Gotha court orchestra was one of the most remarkable ensembles, with many illustrious names among its conductors, such as Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel (1690–1749) or Georg Anton Benda (1722–1795). To give a concert in the Hall of Mirrors at Friedenstein Castle with Baroque music from the oeuvre of Johann Sebastian Bach arranged for harpsichords, as made possible by the engagement of the internationally renowned solo harpsichordists Aleksandra and Alexander Grychtolik, is therefore a wonderful continuation of this musical tradition. The performance of this virtuoso ensemble in Gotha is also obvious because the Gotha Research Library, as the successor institution to the ducal court library, preserves among its approximately 8000 scores some 1400 handwritten works and especially 130 manuscripts and old prints documenting the work of the Bach family of composers.

The first part of Aleksandra and Alexander Grychtolik's programme will not only include well-known works by Johann Sebastian Bach or an improvisation on Antonio Vivaldi's first opera Ottone in villa. Rather, concertgoers can look forward to the "Improvisation of a 7th Brandenburg Concerto". The curiosity is likely to be all the greater because only six of these concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach have actually survived.

Alexander Grychtolik is not only a harpsichordist, conductor and honorary professor for improvisation on historical keyboard instruments at the Hochschule für Music "Franz Liszt" in Weimar, who is dedicated to the research and re-performance of musical certificates of baroque residential culture. He is also a well-known specialist in the reconstruction of lost works, and recently reconstructed and performed a Passion oratorio that Bach had probably abandoned. In the second part of the musical evening, Alexander Grychtolik will talk about "Gotha, Bach and Bach's Passion Oratorios" and the unknown Bach Passionale of the Gotha Research Library, thus providing exciting insights into the working and compositional methods of historical Music and the holdings of the Research Library.

Due to limited capacity, please register by 11 September at veranstaltungen.fb@uni-erfurt.de or tel. 0361/737-5530.