Bach Weekend 2020: Bach the Dramatist

Martin Feinstein’s Bach Weekend returns to Kings Place with a bang this April and explores Bach’s flair for the dramatic.

The opening concert features his secular cantatas, skilfully written mini-operas in all but name. Bach completely dispels our preconceptions of him as a buttoned-up civil servant with his racy themes and double-entendres.

In complete contrast the Mass in B minor, with its brilliant scoring and epic message, effortlessly uses every rhetorical musical device in Bach’s considerable armoury to create a drama of transcendent power.

Also included in the weekend are two of Bach’s late mono-thematic masterpieces, The Goldberg Variations and the Musical Offering, the latter work performed as never before.