This year the Festival will also be marking the 300th anniversary of the death of Bach’s illustrious predecessor, Dietrich Buxtehude, who died in 1707. The week long series of seven concerts will be inaugurated with a special festival Mass, which will include the Lutheran Mass in A Major, BWV 234 on Sunday 22 July at 6pm.

An intriguingly named concert on Monday 23 July, “Music from the Café Zimmerman”, will include the Coffee Cantata, performed by Baroque specialists The Sweelinck Ensemble, under their dynamic young director, Martin Knizia. On Tuesday 24 July Daniel-Ben Pienaar will perform the Six Partitas from the Clavierübung in 2 recitals - one at 1.10pm, the other at 6pm. Then on 25 July Peter Lea-Cox, St Anne’s erstwhile Director of Music, returns with the Lecosaldi Ensemble for “Buxtehude and his contemporaries”, which will include works by Purcell and Couperin in addition to Buxtehude.

No Bach festival would be complete without organ music,  so on 26 July Martin Knizia will be playing famous works by both Bach and Buxtehude, including Bach’s Toccata in D minor. The climax of the Buxtehude anniversary will be reached on Friday, with a programme marking the “Young Bach and Old Buxtehude” (including Bach’s famous Actus Tragicus, BWV 106, and two cantatas by Buxtehude).

The week concludes with a Gala Concert, replete with wine and refreshments in the church garden, including the Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 and the Harpsichord Concerto in A major, as well as works by Handel and Vivaldi. Performers at this cornucopia of Baroque music include early music specialists such as Almut Schlicker and Ulrike Wildenhof (Germany), pianist Daniel-Ben Pienaar and, in the Sweelinck and Lecosaldi Ensembles, some of the most innovative and interesting performers of baroque music playing in England today.
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