0:00:28 > 0:00:31It might be a little warm here in the Royal Albert Hall
0:00:31 > 0:00:34but if there's one composer guaranteed instantly to
0:00:34 > 0:00:38revive your sense of serenity and composure, it's JS Bach.
0:00:38 > 0:00:42Tonight's conductor John Eliot Gardiner has made the music of Bach
0:00:42 > 0:00:45- with all its complexity and crystalline beauty -
0:00:45 > 0:00:46his life's work.
0:00:46 > 0:00:50This evening, he's joined here at the Proms by his band of fellow
0:00:50 > 0:00:53musical-explorers - the players of the English Baroque Soloists
0:00:53 > 0:00:55and singers of the Monteverdi Choir.
0:00:55 > 0:00:59It was just over a decade ago that these musicians together
0:00:59 > 0:01:03went on a Bach Pilgrimage that took them to 14 countries worldwide.
0:01:03 > 0:01:08There, they performed all of Bach's cantatas - pieces of sacred music,
0:01:08 > 0:01:12each written for a specific date in the Lutheran church calendar.
0:01:12 > 0:01:14And that completely immersive experience,
0:01:14 > 0:01:17along with the 28 - yes, count them -
0:01:17 > 0:01:2128 albums they recorded on that trip, means that we will hear
0:01:21 > 0:01:23Bach performed tonight by some of the most knowledgeable,
0:01:23 > 0:01:27responsive and passionate musicians on the planet.
0:01:27 > 0:01:31On the bill this evening we've two of Bach's greatest sacred works -
0:01:31 > 0:01:34his Ascension Oratorio and, before that, the Easter Oratorio.
0:01:34 > 0:01:37Earlier today, I talked to Sir John Eliot Gardiner
0:01:37 > 0:01:40about the music he's decided to bring to this year's Proms.
0:01:40 > 0:01:42I think they're fantastic
0:01:42 > 0:01:46because they've got just the right balance of narrative and meditation.
0:01:46 > 0:01:50And also, untrammelled hi-jinx and joy.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54Bach's life in Leipzig was pretty ghastly.
0:01:54 > 0:01:58And yet he wrote this prodigiously uplifting music
0:01:58 > 0:02:03that detoxifies halls, other music, it's there
0:02:03 > 0:02:06and it's feel-good music in the best sense.
0:02:06 > 0:02:11Can you put your finger on what it does, how it restores equilibrium?
0:02:11 > 0:02:14Because there is an almost kind of bodily effect of listening to Bach.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17Yeah, there is. And I think it's all to do with proportion
0:02:17 > 0:02:19and mathematical structure.
0:02:19 > 0:02:22I don't subscribe to the idea that he actually sort of ruled his paper and
0:02:22 > 0:02:26worked out exactly the number of bars in a Fibonacci series or something.
0:02:26 > 0:02:31I think he had an incredibly natural and intuitive sense of
0:02:31 > 0:02:33balance and proportion.
0:02:33 > 0:02:40And he also had an incredibly attractive sense of buoyancy,
0:02:40 > 0:02:42rhythmic buoyancy and elasticity.
0:02:42 > 0:02:46So there's... So much of his music is dance-related,
0:02:46 > 0:02:49either very slow or very quick, or somewhere in between.
0:02:49 > 0:02:53- But it's got a dance basis.- You sort of almost bodily do want to move.
0:02:53 > 0:02:55- You want to be tapping your toes. - Absolutely.
0:02:55 > 0:02:57I wonder how much people are going to find it difficult at
0:02:57 > 0:03:00the Royal Albert Hall to just kind of sit and be still and be quiet.
0:03:00 > 0:03:02But why should they?
0:03:02 > 0:03:05I'm puzzled that people should think that's the correct way
0:03:05 > 0:03:07of listening to music.
0:03:07 > 0:03:11A few years ago, we did a Prom of Rameau and I had
0:03:11 > 0:03:16the people from Soweto, the Buskaid, who love playing Rameau and singing.
0:03:16 > 0:03:18And they, those South Africans,
0:03:18 > 0:03:22they see no division between singing, playing and dancing.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25It's all...part of the same experience to them.
0:03:25 > 0:03:29And we in the West, we're much more separated and everything divided, but
0:03:29 > 0:03:33there is a natural feeling of wanting to dance to this music and why not?
0:03:33 > 0:03:36- It-it-it has huge...- If they're all dancing in the gallery tonight...
0:03:36 > 0:03:40- Good.- ..it's only you to blame. - Fine. It's fine by me.
0:03:40 > 0:03:42APPLAUSE
0:03:43 > 0:03:46So, for the Easter Oratorio by JS Bach,
0:03:46 > 0:03:49here comes conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner to join the
0:03:49 > 0:03:54Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, and the solo singers -
0:03:54 > 0:03:56Hannah Morrison the soprano, Meg Bragle, alto,
0:03:56 > 0:04:00Nicholas Mulroy the tenor, and Peter Harvey, bass.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11MUSIC: "Easter Oratorio" by JS Bach
0:46:07 > 0:46:09APPLAUSE
0:46:21 > 0:46:26The Easter Oratorio by JS Bach, performed by Sir John Eliot Gardiner
0:46:26 > 0:46:30with the Monteverdi Choir, the English Baroque Soloists
0:46:30 > 0:46:32here at the Proms.
0:46:32 > 0:46:36We also heard Hannah Morrison, Meg Bragle, Nicholas Mulroy,
0:46:36 > 0:46:39and Peter Harvey, the soloists.
0:46:39 > 0:46:41APPLAUSE CONTINUES
0:46:42 > 0:46:45Fantastic performances, I thought.
0:46:45 > 0:46:49Not only from the solo singers, but some wonderful solo playing.
0:46:49 > 0:46:52Particularly from the winds - flutes, oboes.
0:46:52 > 0:46:56Applause for principal flute Rachel Beckett.
0:46:56 > 0:46:58Beautiful obbligato playing from her.
0:46:58 > 0:47:01Principal oboe there, Michael Niesemann.
0:47:03 > 0:47:07APPLAUSE CONTINUES
0:47:15 > 0:47:18Amazing, I think, to think the Easter Oratorio,
0:47:18 > 0:47:22this is its very first complete performance here at the Proms.
0:47:22 > 0:47:25Henry Wood played snippets of it here in the 1930s.
0:47:25 > 0:47:29Malcolm Sargent did a few bits and bobs in the '50s.
0:47:29 > 0:47:31And that was it, until now.
0:47:37 > 0:47:39So, we've had the first day of Easter,
0:47:39 > 0:47:41next is the story of the Ascension.
0:47:41 > 0:47:45And it is just phenomenally uplifting music - quite literally.
0:47:45 > 0:47:48Bach's Oratorio taking a story of hope and belief,
0:47:48 > 0:47:51that I think reaches all of us - whether we believe or not -
0:47:51 > 0:47:55and setting it to music that pulses with spiritual yearning.
0:47:55 > 0:47:57There are trumpet-fuelled choruses,
0:47:57 > 0:48:01and plenty of exquisite solo singing in between.
0:48:01 > 0:48:03Well, in my conversation with tonight's conductor,
0:48:03 > 0:48:04John Eliot Gardiner, earlier,
0:48:04 > 0:48:07I asked him what he thought the secret was
0:48:07 > 0:48:09to the drama of this music.
0:48:09 > 0:48:13Well, I think it's to do with somebody who has a strong
0:48:13 > 0:48:15sense of theatre but never wrote an opera.
0:48:15 > 0:48:22Somebody who has a tremendously vivid sense of narrative, of colour,
0:48:22 > 0:48:25but also of the complexity of human life.
0:48:25 > 0:48:27And even though he's writing these pieces
0:48:27 > 0:48:29ostensibly for the glory of God
0:48:29 > 0:48:31and for the edification of his congregation,
0:48:31 > 0:48:34and I don't belittle that in any sense at all, I think
0:48:34 > 0:48:37there's also a different agenda, which is
0:48:37 > 0:48:41to expose and underline the human condition, as it were.
0:48:41 > 0:48:46And I think that's one of the reasons that his music is so poignant -
0:48:46 > 0:48:53he is suggesting the fragility of belief, of behaviour even.
0:48:53 > 0:48:58I mean, so many of his cantatas are full of wrath and anger
0:48:58 > 0:49:02and disbelief, and then in a trice
0:49:02 > 0:49:05he can change to something that's quite
0:49:05 > 0:49:12parodistic and sardonic and as though he's pulling your leg.
0:49:12 > 0:49:15I think that what's so appealing about his music
0:49:15 > 0:49:17after all this period of time,
0:49:17 > 0:49:22is its humanity, is the fact that he shows vulnerability and he shows
0:49:22 > 0:49:27that humans are flawed individuals and that there is a way through.
0:49:27 > 0:49:29There is a way out of it.
0:49:29 > 0:49:34And he does it with so much persuasion, by musical
0:49:34 > 0:49:38and rhetorical means, that you're drawn into it.
0:49:38 > 0:49:42You're here tonight with your band, your players, your singers.
0:49:42 > 0:49:45Can you just give us a sense of...I mean,
0:49:45 > 0:49:47will there be a moment for you tonight where you just sort of
0:49:47 > 0:49:50are suddenly in that wash of sound, where you're not
0:49:50 > 0:49:54quite in the moment of conducting and you're just there as a listener?
0:49:54 > 0:49:56- Does that happen to you? - Very much so. Very much so.
0:49:56 > 0:49:59I mean, when we come together,
0:49:59 > 0:50:03there's a tremendous sense of complicity
0:50:03 > 0:50:05and of camaraderie, really.
0:50:05 > 0:50:09And a sense that the music we're privileged to play is the best.
0:50:09 > 0:50:14And is just wonderfully refreshing and wonderfully uplifting.
0:50:14 > 0:50:19And so there is a deep sense of joy and delight in the moment.
0:50:19 > 0:50:25And I... Yes, of course I'm there to give the impartation
0:50:25 > 0:50:30and suggest ways through, and a lot of it goes on in rehearsal.
0:50:30 > 0:50:32But they're so committed.
0:50:32 > 0:50:36Yes, and I feel totally enveloped by the experience of being
0:50:36 > 0:50:40part of the team. It's a great joy.
0:50:40 > 0:50:41APPLAUSE
0:50:41 > 0:50:44So for the second ecstatic dose of Bach,
0:50:44 > 0:50:48from surely some of the greatest exponents of this music -
0:50:48 > 0:50:50coming on stage, Sir John Eliot Gardiner
0:50:50 > 0:50:53to join the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists
0:50:53 > 0:50:56in the Ascension Oratorio by JS Bach.
0:50:58 > 0:51:03MUSIC: "Ascension Oratorio" by JS Bach
1:20:39 > 1:20:42APPLAUSE
1:20:55 > 1:20:57The Ascension Oratorio by JS Bach,
1:20:57 > 1:21:01performed by Sir John Eliot Gardiner with the Monteverdi Choir,
1:21:01 > 1:21:04and the English Baroque Soloists -
1:21:04 > 1:21:07led in that performance by Kati Debretzeni.
1:21:13 > 1:21:15The soloists tonight -
1:21:15 > 1:21:18Meg Bragle, the alto.
1:21:20 > 1:21:23The soprano, Hannah Morrison.
1:21:23 > 1:21:25APPLAUSE
1:21:25 > 1:21:28Nicholas Mulroy, tenor.
1:21:28 > 1:21:30And Peter Harvey, the bass.
1:21:39 > 1:21:42APPLAUSE CONTINUES
1:21:42 > 1:21:46David Watkin, continuo cello there.
1:21:46 > 1:21:50All of the players of the English Baroque Soloists now on their feet.
1:21:55 > 1:21:58These performers brought here by a man who has simply
1:21:58 > 1:22:02steeped himself in the life, the music, in the world of JS Bach.
1:22:02 > 1:22:06John Eliot Gardiner gave the first performance of this piece
1:22:06 > 1:22:09at the Proms in 1971.
1:22:09 > 1:22:11APPLAUSE CONTINUES
1:22:17 > 1:22:23Some stupendous choral singing tonight from the Monteverdi Choir.
1:22:23 > 1:22:27They and the English Baroque Soloists performing in 1971
1:22:27 > 1:22:32and then 1985, and bringing this piece back to the Proms in 2013.
1:22:37 > 1:22:40APPLAUSE CONTINUES
1:22:41 > 1:22:45And that is the end of this very special Friday Night at the Proms
1:22:45 > 1:22:47from the Royal Albert Hall.
1:22:47 > 1:22:49Next Friday night, Nigel Kennedy will be here on BBC Four
1:22:49 > 1:22:52to perform one of his signature pieces,
1:22:52 > 1:22:54giving Vivaldi's Four Seasons
1:22:54 > 1:22:57an intriguing individual twist of his own.
1:22:57 > 1:22:59In the meantime,
1:22:59 > 1:23:02tomorrow on BBC Two Katie Derham's here with Proms Extra - a glance
1:23:02 > 1:23:05at the week's musical events, with some special guests and highlights.
1:23:05 > 1:23:09And a reminder that you can hear all the proms live on BBC Radio 3.
1:23:09 > 1:23:13But for now, from me, Suzy Klein, it's good night.
1:23:32 > 1:23:35Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd