Baroque Meets the Present - Bach's Magnificat with Movements by Mårten Jansson

Vox Quadrata
Kammerphilharmonie Mannheim
Conductor: Tristan Meister
Soprano: Johanna Beier, Lisa Schramm
Alto: Johanna Götz
Tenor: Fabian Kelly
Bass: Jona Steuerwald

The chamber choir Vox Quadrata and the Kammerphilharmonie Mannheim place Bach's Magnificat in a new context. Swedish composer Mårten Jansson (*1965) has written four contemporary interpolations that revive the tradition of Christmas hymns Bach inserted between movements in the first version of the work - premiered during Advent 1723. The texts for these new insertions were written by American poet Charles Anthony Silvestri.

The evening opens with Bach's cantata "Es erhub sich ein Streit" (BWV 19), followed by a roughly 20-minute talk by Bach scholars Michael Maul and Bernhard Schrammek on the Magnificat's origins and the long history of interpolated movements.

The concert is being recorded by Deutschlandfunk Kultur and takes place in cooperation with the Bach-Archiv Leipzig.