Bach Mendelssohn Festival

This autumn, the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra returns with a spectacular new season, offering a mix of iconic symphonies, virtuosic soloists, and world premieres. We are particularly proud to be hosting a major Bach/Mendelssohn Festival this season, which will celebrate the life and works of both composers.

It will contain concerts with many renowned artists including Sir Bryn Terfel, Sir András Schiff, Víkingur Ólafsson, Christoph Eschenbach, Mahan Esfahani, Thomas Zehetmair and the Academy of Ancient Music with their director Laurence Cummings.

Alongside our usual concerts, we will be hosting events which are a little different to our normal programme. These include an Insight Day curated by Sir Nicholas Kenyon held at Magdalen College as well as ‘An Hour with Bach’ conversation with Víkingur Ólafsson, where he will present his Bach transcriptions that delicately balance the old and new, the familiar and the unexpected.

‘It’s hard to know where we would be without Bach, and it’s hard to know where Bach would be without Mendelssohn. It was the latter composer who, among others, persuaded the world that Bach’s music could resonate outside its own time. There is a potent message there for our own contemporary view of great music, and its ability to speak over chronological and cultural boundaries.’ – Marios Papadopoulos, OPO Music Director

Both composers are celebrated throughout the festival. In the case of Bach, we take you from the most intimate to the most grand. Master pianist Sir András Schiff takes us through Die Kunst der Fuge, as well as our own Solo Celli performing the composer’s Cello Suites.

On a slightly larger scale we hear the Brandenburg Concertos and on the largest, the St Matthew Passion and the B Minor Mass. We will present Bach arranged by Mendelssohn, and the latter composer’s own polyphonic Reformation Symphony and choral masterpiece Elijah, among many other works.

A highlight of the Festival will be the Insight Day at Magdalen College, curated by Sir Nicholas Kenyon, which will shed further light on the important relationship between the two composers. Leading scholars of J.S. Bach and Felix Mendelssohn come together to discuss the links between the composers, their families, and the growing interest in the music of the past.

Keynote speakers include leading scholars Christoph Wolff, Thomas Schmidt and Benedict Taylor, Michael Maul of the Leipzig Bach Festival, and cultural historians Astrid Köhler, Leanne Langley, and Susan Wollenberg. Bodley librarian Martin Holmes will present the Mendelssohn material. Malcolm Bruno will introduce his newly published edition of the Mendelssohn/Bach St Matthew Passion, with commentary by Peter Ward Jones and Stephen Roe. Pianist-scholar Kenneth Hamilton and Monika Hennemann will illustrate Mendelssohn’s arrangements and travels, and the day will end with a debate about early music performance today.

The day will include an exclusive presentation of the unique Mendelssohn collection of Bach materials in the Bodleian Library and an opportunity to view the recently acquired autograph of Bach’s Cantata for Ascension Day on display at the Weston Library.

Head to our events page now or call the Box Office on 01865 980980 to book your tickets.

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