The climax of the Proms Reformation Day is a complete performance of Bach’s St John ion. ‘More daring, forceful and poetic’ than the St Matthew ion, according to Schumann, this is a work of almost operatic vividness that brings both a humanity and a painful immediacy to the ion narrative.
Bach specialist John Butt and his Dunedin Consort make their Proms debut in a performance that offers the audience the chance to in the chorale-singing, reflecting how the work might originally have been heard in a church setting.
There will be one interval
Broadcast on BBC Four, 20 August
Image: Sophie Bevan © Sussie Ahlburg