CNA Staff, Jul 28, 2020 / 07:00 am
Pope emeritus Benedict XVI has praised the "glorious music" of Johann Sebastian Bach in a message to a festival in Germany.
In a statement released July 27 by the organizers of the 2021 Bach Festival in Leipzig, Benedict XVI noted that the festival would include a cycle called "Bach's Messiah," chronicling the life of Jesus through the composer's music.
"The particularity of this festival is that it has merged the works of Bach relating to the life and work of Jesus Christ of Nazareth into a whole, thus giving us a kind of 'Messiah' by Bach," he wrote.
The Bach Festival will be held on June 12-15, 2021, with the theme of "Redemption." The "Bach's Messiah" cycle will consist of 11 concerts over four days in the churches of Leipzig, the city in eastern Germany where the Lutheran composer died in 1750. The cycle will include 33 Bach cantatas, the St. Matthew Passion, and the Christmas, Easter and Ascension Oratorios.