Throughout the 2016-17 season, New York Baroque Incorporated (NYBI) has been engaged in the music of J. S. Bach, including the St. John Passion at Carnegie Hall and numerous cantatas for the Bach at One series at Trinity Wall Street. For their next presentation, the innovative ensemble presents rarities by his eminent son Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach: Klopstocks Morgengesang Am Schöpfungsfeste (“Klopstock’s Morning Song of Creation”) and his version of the St. John Passion. The Lenten program, which opens with Haydn’s “Passion” Symphony, takes place on March 24, 2017, at Saint Thomas Church, with NYBI joining forces for the first time with the Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys under the baton of their music director Daniel Hyde.

Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock is best known for his epic poem Der Messias (“The Messiah”). C. P. E. Bach became acquainted with Klopstock in 1768 when he moved to Hamburg. Poet and composer formed an intellectual bond and in 1783 Bach set Klopstock’s Morning Song on the Day of Creation as a cantata for two sopranos, choir and orchestra.

C. P. E. Bach’s St. John Passion – one of his 21 settings of the Passion story including five devoted to the gospel according to John – was thought to have disappeared when it was among the many manuscripts taken from the Berlin Sing-Akademie by the Red Army at the end of World War II. The collection, including the St. John Passion, resurfaced in good condition in an archive in Kiev in 1999.

C. P. E. Bach’s version of 1772, which NYBI will perform, is a concise and cohesive assemblage of his own original work, some parts adapted from the 1745 St. John Passion by his godfather, Georg Phillip Telemann, an adaptation of the closing chorus of his father’s St. John Passion, and arrangements of other composers’ work. Tenor Lawrence Jones will sing the part of the Evangelist, with gentlemen of the Saint Thomas Choir taking the roles of Jesus and Pilate.

Opening NYBI’s concert is Haydn’s Symphony No. 49, which earned its nickname “The Passion” from a 1790 performance in Germany which was given during Holy Week.

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For further information about New York Baroque Incorporated please visit http://www.nybaroque.org

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PROGRAM INFORMATION
Monday, March 24, 2017 – 7:30 pm
Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809) Symphony No. 49, “The Passion”
Carl Philipp Bach (1714 – 1788)
Klopstock’s Morning Song on the Day of Creation (Wq 239)
St. John Passion (1772)

New York Baroque Incorporated
with
Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys
Daniel Hyde conductor
Lawrence Jones tenor – Evangelist

Saint Thomas Church
1 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019