Bernard's Bach
Throughout Bach at Home 2020, Principal Conductor and globally-renowned Bach expert Bernard Labadie will take listeners on a deep dive into well-known and obscure works by Bach through essays and specially chosen recordings.
Bach Today
Bach: The Fifth Evangelist
Throughout Bach at Home 2020, Principal Conductor and globally-renowned Bach expert Bernard Labadie will take listeners on a deep dive into well-known and obscure works by Bach through essays and…
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Bach Today
Organists: The Ultimate Renaissance Musicians
Throughout Bach at Home 2020, Principal Conductor and globally-renowned Bach expert Bernard Labadie will take listeners on a deep dive into well-known and obscure works by Bach through essays and…
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Bach Today
Transformation and Authenticity
Throughout Bach at Home 2020, Principal Conductor and globally-renowned Bach expert Bernard Labadie will take listeners on a deep dive into well-known and obscure works by Bach through essays and…
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Bach Today
On Musical Memory and Isabelle Faust
Throughout Bach at Home 2020, Principal Conductor and globally-renowned Bach expert Bernard Labadie will take listeners on a deep dive into well-known and obscure works by Bach through essays and…
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Bach Today
On the Viola Da Gamba and Arranging Bach
Throughout Bach at Home 2020, Principal Conductor and globally-renowned Bach expert Bernard Labadie will take listeners on a deep dive into well-known and obscure works by Bach through essays and…
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Bach Today
Buxtehude’s Influence on Bach
Buxtehude was a remarkably influential figure in Bach’s time, and here Bernard introduces his Jesu meines Lebens Leben BuxWV 62.
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Bach Today
Bach’s Genius In His Early 20’s: The Cantata “Actus tragicus”
Here, Bernard takes us on an exploration of Bach’s early Cantata, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106, otherwise known as “Actus tragicus.” Readers with an interest in musicological…
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Bach Today
Serenity in the Goldberg Variations
Bernard shares his approach to arranging the Goldberg Variations (BWV 988), as well as a powerfully serene memory from the final take of Les Violons du Roy’s recording session.
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Bach Today
Reconstructing the Lost St. Mark Passion
The original manuscript of Bach’s St. Mark Passion is lost. Here Bernard outlines the case for the music from Bach’s Funeral Ode, BWV 198 as a basis for the Passion’s…
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Bach Today
“Bist du bei mir,” an iconic love song
Originally written by Stölzel, “Bist du bei mir” (BWV 508) is a gem of a love song, mainly known as part of the second Little Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach.
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Bach Today
Pioneers and Heroes: Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Max van Egmond, and Frans Brüggen
An elementary school teacher introduced Bernard Labadie to baroque music, which ushered him on a path of musical discovery. His first encounter with the St. Matthew Passion has remained a…
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Bach Today
The Male Voice and Bach
The aria “Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben” from St. Matthew Passion is one of Bach’s most beautiful works for voice, and in the recorded excerpt is beautifully performed by Carolyn Sampson. In Bach’s time, this solo would have…
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Bach Today
Telemann and Audience Impression
The composer Georg Philipp Telemann was a contemporary and friend of Bach’s. He was a legendary figure, with a prolific output of over 3000 works that were, at that time,…
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Bach Today
Pasticcio and Rediscovering a Masterpiece by Bach
Pastiche and Pasticcio, while sounding similar, are not the same. In this essay Bernard explains why he is certain that an unattributed arrangement included in a German pasticcio is “genuine…
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Bach Today
Bach’s Shortest, Least Known, and Deeply Expressive Motet
Bach organized his works of a similar nature into collections of six, such as his “Brandenburg” Concertos, works for violin, as well as solo cello. Bach’s motets were not grouped by the…
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Bach Today
The Art of The Fugue
The Art of The Fugue was written at the end of Bach’s life, and was a compendium intended to demonstrate all the possibilities of contrapuntal writing.
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Bach Today
Next-Level Transformation
Bernard Labadie provides a window into Bach’s masterful transformative abilities with text, language, and musical structure.
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Bach Today
Earthly Existence and Eternal Life
Some of Bach’s towering artistic achievements and finest musical work grapples with the human experience, and as Bernard Labadie shares in this essay, the daily realities of “earthly suffering, and…
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