Friday May 12, 8 p.m.
Saturday May 13, 3 p.m.
Bachgrounder 35 minutes before each performance.
People tend to think of Bach as a serious older man, as in the famous portrait of him on the cover of our brochure. But of course he wasn’t always older! At the dawn of his career, when he lived in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen, he was dashing, full of beans, constantly discovering, questing, pushing limits and even getting into trouble. And his music! There seem to have been no limits for the brilliant young cantor from Eisenach. We’ll perform four of his early cantatas, in which he experimented with styles and moods and orchestrations: the famous Cantata 4: Christ lag in Todesbanden; Cantata 131: Aus der Tiefe, based upon Psalm 130; Cantata 150: Nach dir, Herr; and the delightful Cantata 196: Der Herr denket an uns.
![Bach Statue A Statue of Bach in an urban area](https://www.sonoma.edu/sites/www/files/field/image/arnstadt-and-muhlhausen-image-copy.jpeg)