Performers
La Petite Bande
Sigiswald Kuijken (conductor)
Sophie Karthäuser (soprano)
Patrizia Hardt (alto)
Christoph Einhorn (tenor)
Christoph Genz (tenor)
Jan van Der Crabben (bass-baritone)
Stephan Genz (bass)
Ex Tempore choir

Programme
JS Bach: Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen
CPE Bach: Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu

The baroque instrumental and choral ensemble La Petite Bande was founded in 1972 by Sigiswald Kuijken, taking its name from the orchestra of the court of Louis XIV. All of its members are internationally renowned specialists in the early music field, and although the ensemble was not originally intended to become a permanent orchestra, its popularity and recording success was such that regular concerts were called for, and allowed the ensemble to expand its repertoire from French music to works by Bach, Händel, Gluck, Haydn and Mozart.

Since 1999, Leipzig has hosted the Leipzig Bach Festival, a major celebration of the work of JS Bach, and by extension his talented offspring. This concert is one of the highlights of the Leipzig Bach Festival 2004, which features La Petite Bande alongside the chamber choir Ex Tempore, also specialists in 17th and 18th century music.

The concert features two of the most remarkable vocal works by Johann Sebastian Bach and his most famous son, Carl Philipp. The two-part cantata Ascension Oratorio has its origin in an elder secular work and includes some arias which occur again in the B Minor Mess. The thematical related oratorio by CPE Bach originated 40 years later and is an important masterpiece of the genre, whose multi-faceted musical colours tell the story of the Ascension of Christ.