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Bach’s Mass in B-Minor is the Subject of a Talk Thursday by Professor Gil Harel

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On Thursday night at Darien Library, frequent Darien Library lecturer Gil Harel will examine Bach’s Mass in B-Minor, the composer’s final amazing achievement, a testament to his career, with a work that transcends any historical period. — an announcement from Darien Library

Johann Sebastian Bach did not complete his B Minor Mass until 1749, the year before he died. Indeed, that this pietist Lutheran musical juggernaut set the Mass Ordinary in Latin is itself a curiosity that invites closer examination. Scholars have long debated the “why” part of this question, but posterity can only express gratitude that he did. Towering in scope, Bach employed the “parody” technique of repurposing older compositions (something for which G.F. Handel is well known), and supplemented these older reworkings with new movements of exquisite expressivity.

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‘Bach, Good Friday and the St. John Passion’ — Darien Library Online Lecture byGil Harel

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In a one-hour online lecture Tuesday from 7 to 8 p.m., Dr. Gil Harel will explore the history of Bach’s Eastertide masterpiece, the Johannes-Passion of 1724. — an announcement from Darien Library

Johann Sebastian Bach never wrote an opera. Indeed, for a provincial composer of church music in Lutheran Germany, such a project was not in the cards. However, Bach showed himself to be a profoundly skilled musical storyteller, and there is perhaps no greater example of this than his towering Passion oratorios. In this work, the composer draws on his prodigious skills to convey the story of the Passion through music.

Darien Library

Learn About Johan Sebastian Bach in a Four-Part Lecture Series at Darien Library

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Learn about Johan Sebastian Bach, one of the world’s greatest composers from Gil Harel, a musicologist and music theorist, in a series of four Tuesday night talks starting July 9 at Darien Library. — This article adapts various Darien Library announcements and information from elsewhere, as noted. Harel’s lectures, meant for the general public, cover Bach from his early years to his quest for musical perfection. Though under appreciated in his own time, later generations would come to venerate his music in a way that Bach himself surely could never have fathomed. Each lecture starts at 7 p.m.

Darien Library will make each lecture available in an online video here, as it has with has with Harel’s past lectures, including his series on Beethoven, Mozart and liturgical music.