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The Essay Podcast

The Essay

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Music in Its Time

The Essay: Music in Its Time: Episode 4: Bach: St Matthew Passion

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Music: Classical

Music in Its Time

Episode 4

Episode 4: Bach: St Matthew Passion

Bach: St Matthew Passion

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Exploring the impact of Bach's St Matthew Passion on its first audiences in Leipzig.

Stephen Johnson explores the impact of Bach's St Matthew Passion on its first audiences in Leipzig.

Stephen Johnson considers how five seminal pieces of music would have been appreciated by the audiences who heard them first. He probes the societies and cultures that shaped the experience of those original listeners to reveal what our modern ears might be missing.

Since its revival in the 19th century, Bach's St. Matthew Passion has been hailed as one of the pillars of Western music; universally regarded, and with a powerful influence that reaches into our own time. How differently, then, would his music have fired imaginations in the provincial church-goers of 18th century Leipzig? People whose experience of music was so much more limited than our own, and whose pietist religious sensibilities coloured every aspect of their daily lives.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

How pieces of music would have been appreciated by the audiences who heard them first

Stephen Johnson on how pieces of music would have been heard by the audiences who heard them first. He examines the societies and cultures that shaped the experience of those original listeners

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Episode 4: Bach: St Matthew Passion

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