Bach: Magnificat
& German carols
with orchestra
Saturday, December 9, 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, December 10, 4:00 p.m.
Duke University Chapel (Durham)
$15 adults; students admitted free
Our Christmas concert features J.S. Bach’s splendid Magnificat,
certainly the best known of all settings of canticle of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, from the gospel of Luke. One of the most familiar and
appealing of Bach’s choral works, the Magnificat is scored for
five soloists and a five-part chorus, with trumpets, flutes, oboes,
strings, and continuo. Avoiding recitative and da capo arias,
the work opens and closes with full chorus and orchestra, and solo
movements alternate with choral sections to vividly depict the text.
Opening our concert and complementing Bach’s jubilant and sparkling
cantata is a selection of traditional German and Austrian carols in
arrangements by such composers as David Willcocks, John Rutter,
Reginald Jacques, Jackson Berkey, and Daniel Gawthrop.