CHRISTMAS WITH BACH: KOMM, JESU, KOMM

Ensemble Pygmalion is one of the best Early Music groups in Europe. Consisting of a choir and ‎an orchestra of period instruments, it was born in 2006 by Raphaël Pichon from a desire to ‎perform a broad repertoire of historically-informed works ranging from Schütz, Rameau and ‎Bach to Gluck, Mendelssohn and Brahms. Ensemble Pygmalion is in residence at the Opéra ‎National de Bordeaux and appears regularly at leading venues in France and central Europe. ‎Its recordings for labels such as Alpha, Harmonia Mundi and Erato have been favourably ‎received by specialist press across Europe. In the concert presented at L’Auditori, Ensemble ‎Pygmalion will perform six motets by Johann Sebastian Bach and vocal, liturgical works for ‎various voices. Even though the date the motets were composed is unknown, the majority ‎were written during Bach’s Leipzig period and constitute one of the major landmarks in ‎choral polyphony of the Baroque period. When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visited Leipzig in ‎‎1789 he heard the motet Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied and was impressed ‎by its beauty and perfect construction.‎