Philippe Herreweghe guest director
Margaret Faultless leader

JS Bach Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht, BWV 105
JS Bach Mass in A, BWV 234 

Performed on historical instruments.

Tickets £15 (concessions £12), season discounts available. Book from Tuesday 4th October 2016: By telephone 020 7873 7300, in person (Monday–Friday, 10am–4pm) and online

Brightness and darkness are juxtaposed in this concert, conducted by the Royal Academy of Music/Kohn Foundation Bach Prize winner Philippe Herreweghe. Bach’s Mass in A major is one of the four works he put together for the Lutheran rite, consisting of only the Kyrie and the Gloria, probably in the late 1730s. Like its three companion works, this setting draws on cantata movements Bach had composed in the 1720s. The special qualities of this luminous work were recognised early: it is one of only a very few of Bach’s pieces for voices and instruments to appear in print before the great collected edition appeared in the later nineteenth century.

Philippe Herreweghe guest director Margaret Faultless leader Performed on historical instruments Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht (‘Enter not into judgement with Thy servant, O Lord’) is one of Bach’s most awe-inspiring cantatas, not just on account of its superlative workmanship and imaginative scope, but also because of its dark colours, the shivering effect of its instrumental lines in its most famous aria and, not least, the uncanny stringed-instrument commentary which surrounds its final chorale — an effect unmatched in the repertoire. Ideal listening for a Sunday in late autumn!