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Bach's Quodlibet BWV 524, here performed by the Netherlands Bach Society for All of Bach, has not been completely preserved. Although the Quodlibet – translated as ‘as you like it’ – does have text, even if we had all the music (it is a fragment of one of the rare early Bach autograph works), it would still be difficult for us to make sense of it. Bach wrote the crazy little piece in 1707, maybe for his own wedding to his first wife Maria Barbara Bach. We hear about ‘Salome’ and ‘Dominus Johannes’, which may refer to Bach’s sister and the preacher Johann Lorenz Stauber, respectively, and about the Güldene Krone in Arnstadt, a respectable house where Bach probably lived for a while before moving to Mühlhausen. But whatever the reason behind it, this little work has everything you might expect of the oh-so-serious Bach: refined counterpoint, a chaconne, an ironic psalmody and a resolute fugue about a kneading trough. It’s anybody’s guess! Recorded for the project All of Bach on 10 October 2020 at TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht. If you want to help us complete All of Bach, please subscribe to our channel and consider donating For more information on BWV 524 and this production go to All of Bach is a project of the Netherlands Bach Society / Nederlandse Bachvereniging, offering high-quality film recordings of the works by Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by the Netherlands Bach Society and its guest musicians. Visit our free online treasury for more videos and background material For concert dates and further information go to Netherlands Bach Society Shunske Sato, musical direction Griet de Geyter, sopran Yosemeh Adjei, alto Julian Habermann, tenor Dominik Wörner, bass Thomas Höft, theatre concept, direction and design
