“Off to the Hunt! The opening concerts of the 30th All-Bach Season will feature the sonorous corno da caccia or “hunting horn” in two works that reveal Bach’s playful dispositions while employed in Weimar and Cöthen. The joyful “Hunting Cantata,” Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd! (“What pleases me is the lively hunt!”) is Bach’s earliest surviving secular cantata, composed for the 31st birthday of Duke Christian of Saxe-Weissenfels whose wise governance and adept hunting skills are allegorically praised in song. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F Major brings the Baroque horn to the foreground in some of Bach’s most robust instrumental music, and the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major for three groups of string instruments matches violins, violas, and ‘cellos in a rally of friendly competition, a tour de force volley of virtuosity.” (American Bach Soloists)

Hélène Brunet, Diana
Julie Bosworth, Pales
Derek Chester, Endymion
Mischa Bouvier, Pan