J.S. Bach - Secular Cantatas 'Tönet, ihr Pauken' - Herreweghe (HM 2005)

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J.S. Bach - Secular Cantatas 'Tönet, ihr Pauken' - Herreweghe (HM 2005)

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'Sound, ye drums! Ring out, ye trumpets!’

In his Leipzig years, Bach liked to remind people that he was not only Kantor of St Thomas’s, but also the city’s director of music. It was in this capacity that he wrote these sumptuous secular cantatas, in honour respectively of the university professor Kortte (BWV 207, 1726) and of Queen Maria Josepha (BWV 214, 1733). Allegorical figures such as Industry, Fortune, Honour and Gratitude take it in turns to sing of the learning and the merits of the recipients, borrowing material from one of the Brandenburg Concertos or ‘quoting’ some of the finest music from the Christmas Oratorio, not yet composed . . .

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