Under the direction of artistic leader Johanna Soller, the programme unfolds from a small and contemplative beginning: the Gregorian Ave maris stella. From this dark atmosphere, a musical path towards the light opens up. First comes the Sinfonia in D minor by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, the eldest son of Johann Sebastian. A talented composer who nonetheless never achieved widespread popularity.

Carl Philipp Emanuel had a very different fate; the most successful of all Bach’s children, he was known in the second half of the eighteenth century as ‘the great Bach’. His Magnificat, his first large-scale vocal work, breathes the spirit of his father’s Magnificat and Mass in B minor. At the same time, it looks ahead to the music of Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn.