Toronto Bach Festival 2025 looks at the Baroque master’s works through the lens of his own revisions and reworkings. Bach famously reused and reworked his own compositions, and the Bach Festival’s programming takes a dive into that process.
While it ends the festival, the composer’s St. John Passion was actually the starting point for programming, as Artistic Director John Abberger explains.
“The point of departure is the second version of the St. John Passion,” Abberger explains. “That’s our jumping off point.” Like any busy working creator, Bach looked for ways to both perfect and stretch the usefulness of his work. “Bach was incredibly clever at recycling his own work.”
Toronto Bach Festival
Brandenburg Reimagined (May 30)
The festival opens with Brandenburg Reimagined — not to be confused with the similarly named DG line of recordings. “It’s all Bach,” Abberger stresses. “We do present some other composers, but we’re kind of all Bach, all the time.”
The program includes the very familiar Brandenburg Concerto No. 6.
“It’s one of my favourite concertos,” John adds.
Abberger points to Bach’s later works for harpsichord which many scholars believe are essentially recycled material from works for other instruments. Bach’s reworking of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 for harpsichord resulted in the Concerto in F Major for Harpsichord BWV 1057, also on the program. “This is the same music, it’s just in a different key,” he says. “That fits neatly into our pattern.”
As he points out, it’s a sign of Bach’s professionalism that he was able to rework his material in a way that didn’t diminish either the original or the repurposed version. Making a living as a composer in the 18th century meant constantly coming up with new material designed for specific occasions.
Also on the program is Concerto Brandenbourgeois No. 12, a new composition that combines elements of Bach’s cantatas BWV 163, 80, and 18 by the late Canadian-American oboist and Baroque specialist Bruce Haynes.
“We do have this work that has been called with Brandenburg Concerto No. 12,” Abberger says.
Abberger explains that Haynes worked on the new Brandenburgs with his wife, cellist Susie Napper, mining his cantatas for instrumental passages, along with arias that have transformed into slow movements. “The last movement is an orchestral movement from an earlier cantatas,” he says. “The cantatas are full of these instrumental passages.”
Abberger has added a bit of a twist for the performance.
“I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting to tweak it a little bit more,” Abberger says. With Susie’s blessing, he added to the instrumentation of the work.
Bach’s Keyboard (May 31)
Boston native Dongsok Shin brings the lautenwerk to the Bach Festival for Bach’s Keyboard, a noon-time performance. He’ll be performing the Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro, BWV 998, and Sonata for Oboe and Harpsichord, BWV 1030a.
“He’s become an expert on early keyboards,” Abberger says of Shin. “He’s really specialized in this lautenwerk. He owns two of them.”
The Lautenwerk
The lautenwerk is also known as a lute-harpsichord or keyboard lute, and it was in use for most of the Baroque period. It’s similar in action to a harpsichord, but uses gut rather than metal strings. The tone is produces, consequently, is warmer and more resonant. “It has a really warm, beautiful sound,” Abberger says.
J.S. Bach was known to own two of the instruments at the time he died. No examples of the instrument, however, have survived to the present.
“No one knows exactly what these instruments look like,” John notes.
Harpsichord makers in the 20th century revived the instrument based on detailed descriptions of the instruments left by a couple of its 18th century builders, which included Johann Sebastian’s second cousin Johan Nicolaus Bach.
Abberger explains that very few of the works that Bach wrote ostensibly for the lute could have actually been performed on the instrument as it existed in his day. That’s what has led many scholars to believe they were actually composed for the lautenwerk.
John will be playing the oboe for the Sonata for Oboe and Harpsichord. “It’s known primarily in D minor as a flute sonata,” he says, noting there is another version as a keyboard part in G minor.
“I’m really excited to present this new sound to our audiences,” he says. Shin will give a short talk about the instrument. “He’ll be playing it and talking about it as well.”
The venue, Eastminster United Church, will add to the audience experience. “The acoustics at Eastminster Church is really outstanding for the harpsichord. It’s just a really great space for a keyboard instrument.”
Kaffeehaus (May 31, Two Performances)
The uber-popular Kaffeehaus concert returns at the Church of the Holy Trinity, and features Canadian actor R.H. Thomson as host and a program of Bach’s Wedding Cantata, BWV 202, and the Chaconne from Violin Partita No. 2, Jeanne Lamon arrangement, in a cozy, beverage-friendly environment. Oboist John Abberger directs students from the Collegium Musicum, University of Toronto, with soprano Sinéad White, and dancers Brian Solomon and Mariana Medellín Canales.
Annual Public Lecture (June 1)
This noon-hour lecture by John Butt is free to all Festival Pass Holders. “He’s one of the foremost Bach scholars in the world,” Abberger says of Butt. “He’s one of these rare types — he’s a brilliant scholar, but he’s also an accomplished keyboard player.”
English orchestral and choral conductor, organist, harpsichordist and scholar John Butt is best known for his work with the music of J.S. Bach. As a teenager, he became the organist at St Alban the Martyr, Birmingham, following which, he began his undergraduate studies at the University of Cambridge. There, he was the organ scholar at King’s College from 1979 to 1982. He subsequently earned his PhD from Cambridge.
He became university organist and assistant professor of music at the University of California, Berkeley. He became an associate professor, and director of the University Chamber Chorus. Later, he’d return to the University of Cambridge to take up the position of University Lecturer, Director of Studies for Music at King’s College, and Fellow of King’s College. He also became the founding director of King’s Voices, a mixed choir.
He has been the Gardiner Professor of Music at the University of Glasgow since 2001.
Alongside his academic career, he’s performed and conducted ensembles throughout the UK and beyond, including the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Irish Baroque Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the Portland Baroque Orchestra, among others.
St. John Passion, BWV 245.2 (June 1)
The festival culminates with Bach’s St. John Passion — the second 1725 version — conducted by John Butt, and featuring musicians Julia Wedman, violin; Patrick Jordan, viola; Matt Antal, viola; and Christopher Bagan, harpsichord. Vocalists include: Ellen McAteer and Sinéad White, sopranos; Daniel Taylor and Nicholas Burns, altos; Charles Daniels and Shane Hanson, tenors; and Jonathan Woody and Jesse Blumberg, basses.
“I’ve been wanting to perform this version of the St. John Passion for many years,” Abberger says.
Bach’s oratorio debuted in 1724, and was subsequently revised in 1725, 1730, and 1749. Abberger notes that the first, third, and fourth versions are quite similar.
“The differences are subtle,” he says. “But, for version two, he made some radical changes,” he adds. “He wrote a new opening chorus for the second version. He wrote three new arias.” Interestingly, Bach recycled his V.2 opening to use in the later St. Matthew Passion. He also wrote a new ending for St. John. “He plopped it on the end of the new setting.”
The result is a resplendent work. “It’s like a chorale fantasia,” John says. “It’s a stunning piece of music. It’s a really wonderful reimagination of this work.”
It creates a memorable finale for the Festival. “I’m very excited to present this version of the St. John Passion,” Abberger says. “John Butt’s really excited about doing this version.”
Final Thoughts On Revisions & Recycling
“We get this concept that comes from the 19th century about great art, the great artist,” Abberger says.
Along the way, we’ve come to believe that the last version of a composer’s particular work is, in fact, the best version. However, taking a closer look at how composers practiced their craft in the 18th century, it becomes clear that’s not necessarily the case. Works were adapted for specific situations, and might be revised multiple times for different occasions.
“It gets a little distorted by this Victorian way of looking at art.”
- Find tickets and more details about Toronto Bach Festival 2025 [HERE].
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