Bach - BWV 19, BWV 149, BWV 130 & BWV 50 - Solomon’s Knot - Bachfest Leipzig

22 June 2025, 17:00

Leipzig’s Nikolaikirche was the venue for Solomon’s Knot’s all-Bach programme, on Sunday 22 June 2025, as part of the famous and truly international Bachfest Leipzig. I last performed in this festival (also with Solomon’s Knot) in 2016. Solomon’s Knot last performed a similar programme to this at the BBC Proms in 2016.

On this occasion the programme began with Johann Christoph Bach’s Es erhub sich ein Streit and continued with four trumpet-laden cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, namely: Man singet mit Freuden vom Sieg (BWV 149), Es erhub sich ein Streit (BWV 19), Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir (BWV 130) and Nun ist das Heil und die Kraft (BWV 50). Very impressively, the singers of Solomon’s Knot performed the entire program from memory.

I led the trumpet section, with William Russell on second, Gareth Hoddinott on third, Sam Kinrade bumping, and Rosie Toll on timpani. I also played the obbligato trumpet part in ‘Bleibt ihr Engel’, the fifth movement of BWV 19, with the excellent tenor Thomas Herford.

I have had a busy week of Bach cantatas this week, having played cornett, trumpet, and slide trumpet in four cantatas (BWV 127, BWV 42, BWV 103 & BWV 28) with Masaaki Suzuki, the Monteverdi Choir, and the English Baroque Soloists on Thursday 19 June at St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

It was great to perform in Leipzig again, especially in a venue known intimately by Johann Sebastian Bach. I took the opportunity to visit the musical instrument collection at the Grassi Museum once again; it was fascinating to study the collection now that I know much more about making brass instruments. It is a very inspiring museum.

Trumpets by Johann Wilhelm Haas, 1715, (MIMUL 1788, 1789)

The concert took place at 3pm on Sunday 22 June 2025, and it was the penultimate performance in the festival. Tradition dictates that the final concert in the festival is a rendition of Bach’s B minor mass (BWV 232) in the Thomaskirche. On this occasion that was performed by the Amsterdam Baroque orchestra and Ton Koopman (the festival director). It was nice to meet the trumpeters from the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra who came to listen to our trumpet-heavy rehearsal on Saturday 21 June.

After our concert, I met up with an old friend from the Isle of Man and we sat outside Leipzig’s historic town hall to the peel of the Thomaskirche bells. The following day I returned home (via Berlin) in readiness to attend a family wedding in Oundle, Northamptonshire.

Russell Gilmour

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

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