Choosing the "best" of Johann Sebastian Bach's nearly 200 sacred cantatas is a daunting task, as each one seems perfect. But three leading Bach experts took up the challenge. Peter Wollny, director of ...

“For the glory of God alone.” With these words, Bach signed off each of his two hundred sacred cantatas. But with so many to choose from, it’s hard to know where to begin. Our guide lifts the lid on a ...

“Ich habe genug,” Bach’s Cantata No. 82, is commonly rendered in English as “I am content.” At the cantata’s center is a lullaby of consoling sweetness, generosity of spirit and somnolent blessedness, ...

As a listener and sometime performer, I feel the same anxiety about living long enough to experience Bach's 200-plus sacred cantatas, the largest, most ingeniously varied and certainly greatest body ...

In his cantatas and church works, Bach frequently employs lively dance rhythms to express the most exuberant forms of worship. In the conclusion to his cantata “Praise the Lord, My Soul” (BWV 143), ...

In 1993, Robert von Bahr, head of the Swedish record label BIS, received a letter proposing that he record the complete Bach cantatas with an unknown Japanese conductor and ensemble. He thought it was ...

When Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale asked conductor and harpsichordist Ruben Valenzuela for a Bach Christmas program, the ensemble knew what it would get. The founder and artistic director ...