This season’s cosmic Sunday mornings with Bach, the Universe and Everything closes with ‘Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn’ (You true God and Son of David), BWV 23, a soulful contemplation of eternity and forgiveness of the human journey from darkness into light, with a scientific talk from a guest speaker.

Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohnwas was also potentially another work Bach submitted in application for the job as music director in Leipzig (the other being Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe, BWV 22 that was performed in February 2024’s event). The unusual final movement interweaves the chorale with instrumental interludes in a German setting of the ‘Agnus dei’ from the Mass.

Our guest speaker for this event will be announced shortly.

About Bach, the Universe and Everything

This is a concert series with a difference. Across six Sunday morning events, we explore the human desire to understand our place in the cosmos, guided by the work of JS Bach – composer and intergalactic genius – through his 200 cantatas. As NASA shares images from the very first moments of time, we invite you to join us on a cosmic journey: each event is built around a Bach cantata and a talk from a guest scientist, writer or broadcaster, alongside choral and instrumental music.

This performance will last approximately 1 hour, without an interval.

‘He was wrong to think he could now forget that the big, hard, oily, dirty, rainbow-hung Earth on which he lived was a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot lost in the unimaginable infinity of the Universe.’

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy