Spread over 3 different time zones 17 hours apart, Jonny chats to SK ‘horn star’ Anneke Scott and Professor Bertil van Boer of Western Washington University in a deep dive into the origins of the horn in art music performance, specifically in the context of the music of our beloved Johann Sebastian Bach.

Anneke's recommended links:
https://lettystott.com

https://www.hornandtrumpet.com/author/peter-holmes/

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SK artistic director Jonathan Sells speaks to Professor Bettina Varwig, stage director John La Bouchardière and keyboard player Chad Kelly about Bach's St Matthew Passion.  What is it, and how will Solomon’s Knot’s approach it?

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SK alto Kate Symonds-Joy (codename KSJ) interviews director Tom Guthrie, SK sopranos Zoë Brookshaw and Clare Lloyd-Griffiths, and the Preacher of Lincoln's Inn chapel, the Ven Sheila Wilson, on a search for answers to her burning questions:

- as a performer who feels most satisfied and honest when they fully immerse themselves in the text and music at hand, how do I commit to sacred music in concert performance?
- do my own beliefs or feelings matter when I'm performing? 
- and a few more...to which there may or may not be any answers!

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Solomon's Knot Artistic Director Jonathan Sells gives his personal take on why JS Bach's St Matthew Passion continues to attract audiences every year, for whom it is 'for', and how we should best approach listening to or experiencing it.

Far removed from the era and context of the first performances of the Matthew Passion, our ritualised annual concert performances of the piece have become an object of worship in their own right.

As well as the beguiling music and compelling story, the Passion speaks to all of our failings as human beings and, through the devastating example of Christ's torture and death, inspires us to do better.

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Composer, outstanding organist, choir trainer, lawyer, and formidable linguist, Johann Kuhnau was Thomaskantor in Leipzig for over 20 years, writing over 1,000 vocal works for church performance there.  The few dozen that remain show a variety and ability to unlock the gamut of emotions from desperate sadness through to unbridled joy.  This belies Kuhnau's conservative and anti-operatic stance handed down in his war of words with those loyal to the upstart Georg Philipp Telemann, with whom he competed for musical resources in Leipzig at the start of his tenure. 
Beset by ill health and bruised from his jousting in these political culture wars, Kuhnau's legacy has been constructed largely in ignorance of his vocal music - which is immediate, moving, joyful, and dramatic.  Thanks to David Erler, Nick Pfefferkorn, and Breitkopf Verlag, this music is becoming much more widely available. 
Solomon's Knot artistic director discusses the man, his music, how he has been seen, and how we should see (and above all listen to) him today, with David Erler, Professor Bettina Varwig, and Professor Stephen Rose.
Solomon's Knot will perform 5 festive cantatas, including three UK premieres, by Johann Kuhnau in December 2022 in York and London.

Bettina Varwig: Rethinking Bach 
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/rethinking-bach-9780190943899?cc=us&lang=en& 

Stephen Rose: Musical Authorship from Schütz to Bach
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/musical-authorship-from-schutz-to-bach/78337447485883F44C8B862462555DDC

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Jonny, SK alto and musicology PhD Nathan Mercieca, Prof Stephen Rose and Dr Bettina Varwig get deep inside the Bach motets, including the context provided by the four Johann Christoph Bach pieces SK has selected for the upcoming tour and on-location CD recording (summer 2022), and the insights into the musical fabric and structure that can be gained by memorisation.

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This is our first podcast episode in German, discussing context and scholarship around the DONNERODE Telemann programme that we are performing with Les Passions de l'Ame in Magdeburg and La Chaux-de-Fonds in March 2022, and that will also be recorded in Magdeburg for the cpo label.

Jonny's guests were the Telemann scholar in Magdeburg, Ralph-Jürgen Reipsch, and early modern historian Dr Lucas Haasis.

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Diese ist unsere erste Podcast-Folge auf Deutsch - herzlich willkommen! Wir diskutieren den Kontext und die Wissenschaft um unser DONNERODE-Programm herum, welches wir mit Les Passions de l'Ame an den Telemann-Festtagen Magdeburg sowie in La Chaux-de-Fonds im März 2022 aufführen.  Das Programm wird auch für das Label 'cpo' in Magdeburg aufgenommen.

Jonnys Gäste waren der Telemann-Wissenschaftler und -Experte Ralph-Jürgen Reipsch, und der Historiker der frühen Neuzeit Dr Lucas Haasis.

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We try to keep navel-gazing to a minimum in the SKaffeehaus, so we wanted to get it out the way early.  This episode also gives newcomers to SK a good idea of what we do, and how we roll.  

Featuring artistic director Jonathan Sells, bass player Jan Zahourek, and two leading members of our 'hardcore Welsh* fanclub', Simon and Eleri Williams, we get to the bottom of what makes SK SK: an enveloping experience, translucent musicianship, direct communication and...cricket balls.

With extracts of music by Bach, Tallis, Kuhnau, Handel, and Purcell.

*The Welshness of the fanclub has been disputed.

Thanks for listening to the SKaffeehaus. To support Solomon's Knot and all of our work, please visit https://www.solomonsknot.co.uk/support/

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