‘The Chosen One’
Academy of Ancient Music, Laurence Cummings
Rowan Pierce, Helen Charlston, Nick Pritchard, Ben Kazez
Milton Court. 16 April 2026

Christoph Graupner: Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden
Christian Friedrich Rolle: Es wurden aber auch and Verdammliche Bosheit
Georg Friedrich Kauffmann: O ich elender Mensch, wer wird mich erlösen?
Georg Philipp Telemann: Ich muß auf dem Bergen weinen und heulen
Johann Friedrich Fasch: Concerto for Flute and Oboe
Johann Sebastian Bach: Du Wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn

The story behind Bach’s eventual 1723 appointment as Leipzig Thomaskantor is well known, but the details of the appointment process are perhaps less so. This programme aimed to shed a closer light on the appointment process by playing the music that some of the candidates performed during their audition. The post of Thomaskantor consisted of far more than the title implies – its official title was Cantor et Director Musices, which better describes the twin roles. As Cantor, he was responsible for directing the music in Leipzig’s four Lutheran churches: the Thomaskirche, Nikolaikirche, Neue Kirche, and Peterskirche. He also had important responsibilities at the Thomasschule, including selecting pupils, and teaching music and Latin. As the Director Musices, he was the principal musician of Leipzig, with civic responsibilities for providing music for official occasions, together with music for the university, usually at the Paulinerkirche. He reported to the city council, the Thomasschule rector, and the Thomaskirche superintendent, but it was the former who ran the auditions and made the decisions on the appointment. 

I don’t know how much music from the audition still exists, but only four pieces were included in this concert, with cantatas by Graupner, Telemann, Kauffmann, and Bach. They showed a remarkable difference in musical style between Bach and the other competitors, whose music was in the later Galant and fledgling Empfindsamkeit style, with a simpler and more operatic approach as compared to Bach’s more contrapuntal and musically complex style, which must have been considered rather outdated at the time. There seemed, to me at least, to be frequent misfits between the music and the related text, for example, in Telemann’s rather pastoral opening (with energetic flute solos) to Ich muß auf dem Bergen weinen und heulen, setting a text of lamentation, weeping and wailing.

The remaining composers featured were represented by music from 20 or more years later, with extracts from a 1744 St Luke’s Passion from Rolle and, curiously, a rather inconsequential Concerto for Flute & Oboe by Fasch, which didn’t seem to me to fit with the topic of programme in any way. I would have much preferred to hear the other cantata that Bach performed, Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe, although we did hear the concluding chorale as an encore, the text of which (Kill us with your goodness) produced giggles from the audience.

The programme essay concentrated on the background stories of the various composers rather than describing the music being performed. It started with the question: What if Bach had failed to win the post? Of course, we would have been denied the vast quantity of music that Bach composed in Leipzig, but the more interesting question on my mind was what would Bach have done had he not eventually been offered the Leipzig post? He was clearly conflicted between church or court appointments, and while at Leipzig, continued to gather various, and largely nominal, court appointments. Several of his best-known pieces were composed as calling cards for various appointments, practically all of which were unsuccessful.

Despite my concerns about the programme, the musical quality was of the usual excellent AAM standard, with notable instrumental contributions from cellist Sarah McMahon,
bass Timothy Amherst and Ursula Leveaux, bassoon, who all had some very complex bass passages to deal with, and Rachel Brown, flute, for her solo contributions. The programme was rather oboe-heavy, not just in their inclusion in most of the pieces, but with their aurally prominent presence that often dominated the texture. The four singers, Rowan Pierce, Helen Charlston, Nick Pritchard, Ben Kazez, all excelled in some tricky musical moments, although I did find the continuous rather heavy vibrato of the soprano a little unsettling in an otherwise beautifully coordinated vocal consort.