Bach & Handel : a 300th birth celebration ... Thursday, March 28, 1985, Jesse Auditorium
Abstract
"Johann Sebastian Bach has become one of those cultural icons so universally adulated and so automatically revered that many of us have accepted his legacy and the received opinion concerning it without much thought or effort--the "Ah! Bach!" school of music appreciation. More is the pity! The law of human nature that declares that one receives from an experience in proportion to what one expends in the process applies emphatically to listening to his music. It can be tuneful. It can be elegant, playful, omi- nous, or majestic. It often exudes a compelling physical energy. But, at the same time, it is often profoundly abstract. It is often rhetorical (in the best sense of that word) and is frequently fortified by symbolism. It can be overtly fastidious or even pedantic. It is in many instances deceptively complex and proudly intellectual. Altogether it represents some of the most ingenious musical accomplishments of man. The result of this informed con- sensus is, of course, that listening (and re-listening) to his creations is one of the richest musical experiences available to man. It should be approached in the spirit of a high--and almost limitless--adventure and should not be overburdened with gratuitous reverence or vapid hero worship."--page 15.
Table of Contents
Program: Cantata 140: Wachet auf, ruft usn die Stimme -- A Selection of Arias ; Chorus from Cantata 172: Erschallet, ihr Liedeer -- Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G Major for Violin, Two Flutes & Continuo (BMV 1049) -- A Selection of Arias & Duets Includes: Chancellor's Introduction ; Bach Aria Group: Biography ; Members of the Bach Aria Group: Biographies ; MU University Singers Roster ; Program Notes ; Translation of Texts ; Upcoming events and Donor Listing.