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Bach, Mendelssohn, Brahms
For 17 singers et 3 instrumentalists (violoncello piccolo, double bass and positive organ)
80 minutes
[TEASER] Comme Bach !
With this programme, Comme Bach!, Joël Suhubiette has conceived a concert that places the music of Bach, Mendelssohn and Brahms in dialogue with one another. The works are interwoven without following a chronological order, offering the audience a distinctive and timeless musical experience.
Amid Bach’s motets, chorales and excerpts from cantatas, works by Mendelssohn and Brahms emerge, performed either a cappella or with basso continuo. Their music reflects a modernity rooted in and inspired by the work of the Leipzig cantor.
“An important and joyful event is about to take place for the musical world […] A hundred years later, the greatest and most sacred achievement of musical art is rising again, and, like the first sunrise after the mists of the Flood, heralds a new, more radiant day.”
Berlin, February 1829
Bringing these three composers together feels entirely natural. At the beginning of the 19th century, Felix Mendelssohn discovered the full breadth of Bach’s music in Leipzig, particularly his vocal works, and embarked on a long process of research and transcription, helping to restore this giant of Western music to the place he deserved. The discovery of this vast body of work had a profound impact on Mendelssohn’s choral writing. His cantatas, motets and oratorios all draw on Bach’s musical world in their form, structure, and the relationship between text and music.
Later, another great German composer, Johannes Brahms, remained devoted to Bach’s music throughout his life, drawing inspiration from it in both his vocal and instrumental works.
By bringing together these three major figures of German music, the artists led by Joël Suhubiette invite us on a surprising journey through time and musical styles.
“What I enjoyed about putting this programme together was playing with the idea of mixing these three composers — Bach, Mendelssohn and Brahms — bringing their works together without following a chronological order, and inviting the audience, in a spirit of complicity, to join me on this journey through time.
I admit I cheated a little… I added basso continuo to a Brahms chorale and to a Mendelssohn motet in which it was not originally included. But then again, didn’t Mendelssohn do the same thing himself in his Te Deum? So I wasn’t really betraying the music too much… I’ll let you be the judge.”
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Comme Bach - Festival Bach Montréal 2024
