St Thomas's Boys Choir: Cantatas for Trinity Season 8/10

The liturgical year with Johann Sebastian Bach: Rondeau Production and Deutschlandradio Kultur are currently releasing a ten-disc CD series with Thomanerchor Leipzig (St Thomas’s Boys Choir Leipzig). The choir presents selected cantatas for the liturgical year in new, vibrant recordings.

The music for the liturgy holds a very special place at St Thomas’s Church Leipzig: even today, the church’s boys choir and the Gewandhausorchester (Gewandhaus Orchestra) perform a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach every week. The present disc centres on the Trinity of God. Time and again, the Trinity has become the topic of painting, poetry, and music. The concept of this disc stands in this century-old tradition and gives insight into the musical representation of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. In the liturgical year, Trinity Sunday marks the closing point of the three main Christian feasts of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost.

Johann Sebastian Bach composed the cantata Die Elenden sollen essen (BWV 75) for the First Sunday after Trinity. Written for performance on 30 May 1723, this cantata is Bach’s inaugural work in his new post as cantor at St Thomas Leipzig. The disc’s second cantata, Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest (BWV 194), was performed on Trinity Sunday in the following year. It had, however, already been composed roughly half a year before, for the dedication of the organ at the church in Störmthal.

Georg Christoph Biller, current cantor at St Thomas, performs the cantatas with extraordinary boys’ voices in the solo parts for soprano and alto, a sign of the new recording’s unique quality.

The following recordings are published as part of the ten-CD series (Order No.THO2012):
Cantatas for Advent BWV 36, 61, 62 (ROP4040)
Cantatas for Christmas BWV 63, 110, 190 (ROP4043)
Cantatas for Epiphany BWV 3, 65, 72 (ROP4038)
Cantatas for Passiontide BWV 22, 23, 182 (ROP4044)
Cantatas for Easter BWV 4, 31, 67 (ROP4045)
Cantatas for The Ascension BWV 37, 43, 128 (ROP4041)
Cantatas for Pentecost BWV 34, 74, 172 (ROP4026)
Cantatas for Trinity Sunday BWV 75, 194 (ROP4036)
Cantatas for Marian Feast BWV 1, 125, 147 (ROP4039)
Cantatas for Reformation/Michaelmas BWV 19, 50, 79, 80 (ROP4031)


10% discount on our recently completed CD-edition: pay only €143.55 (instead of €159.50) if you order the ten-disc edition ‘The Liturgical Year with Johann Sebastian Bach’ today – you save €15.95!

Thomaner Johann Beyer
Thomaner Friedrich Praetorius
Thomaner Conrad Zuber
Thomaner Stefan Kahle
Christoph Genz
Martin Petzold
Georg Streuber
Matthias Weichert
Gewandhausorchester
Thomanerchor Leipzig
Thomaskantor Georg Christoph Biller