Bach - BWV 70 & BWV 243a - Solomon’s Knot - Wigmore Hall & Nottingham

9 December 2023, 21:00

What an experience it would have been to hear Bach’s music in the first year of his 27-year tenure as Thomaskantor and director musices of Leipzig in 1723. It was wonderful to be involved in an ambitious initiative, called Bach300, which is providing opportunities to perform works by Bach 300 years after the occasions for which they were originally composed.

It was with great pleasure that I was able to play first trumpet with Solomon’s Knot for their performances of Bach’s Wachet! Betet! Betet! Wachet! [BWV 70] and the Magnificat in E-flat [BWV 243a], doubling on the slide trumpet in both of these works. The singers of Solomon’s Knot had impressively memorised the entire programme, which also featured O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort [BWV 60].

The first performance took place at a sold-out Wigmore Hall in London on Thursday 7 December 2023; this occasion also marked the beginning of Solomon’s Knot’s tenure as ‘Baroque Ensemble in Residence’ at this prestigious venue. It was recorded for broadcast on 20 December 2023 on BBC Radio 3 and it was live-streamed straight to Wigmore Hall’s YouTube channel.

We gave a second performance at St Mary’s Church in Nottingham on Saturday 9 December 2023. The audience was warm and welcoming and the venue looked resplendent with Christmas decorations, sparkling lights, and no fewer than seventeen Christmas trees!

We performed a chorale, with the brass section moonlighting as singers, as an encore. Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier, No. 59 from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio [BWV 248], was a fitting way to end these festive performances.

Rehearsals for this project took place in the City of London, and I enjoyed some fantastic lunchtime walks around the very picturesque St. Katherine's Docks.

Russell Gilmour

writing on music, photography, engraving, travel and life as a freelance professional musician.

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