Concert Program/ Philippe Herreweghe & Collegium Vocale Gent

From the official Program Notes: A much-anticipated Lufthansa Festival debut by one of the world’s most admired Baroque choral conductors, whose performances of Bach have always been distinguished by their nobility and beauty of sound. This concert brings a reminder that the cantatas and oratorios composed for services at Leipzig’s Thomaskirche not only contain much of Bach’s most unjustly neglected music, but also sound out the rhythms of the passing year. His oratorios for Easter and Ascension feature some of his most joyous choral writing mixed with solo numbers of great lyrical dignity and power; the Ascension Oratorio includes at its heart an early version of the moving Agnus Dei from the B minor Mass. In between comes Erhöhtes Fleisch und Blut, the cantata with which Bach marked Whit Monday 1724 in music as sweetly uplifting as a spring breeze.