Psalm 51 from Pergolesi's Stabat Mater BWV1083 'Tilge, Höchster meine Sünden'
Keyboard Concerto in D minor (after Marcello), BWV974
Languet anima mea after Francesco Bartolomeo Conti

Pergolesi, Conti and Marcello in adaptions by Johann Sebastian Bach

Interest in Italy and involvement with Italian art exerted a lasting influence on cultural activity in Germany from the beginning of the Renaissance at least. Whether one takes the example of Heinrich Schütz or Goethe, the “cradle of Western culture” was seen for centuries to rest in Italy’s fine arts and musicianship.

Johann Sebastian Bach was one of those who spent his life studying his contemporaries’ works, often those he had learnt as a boy. As a violinist at the Lüneburg court he had the opportunity to become acquainted with the fashionable French influence on German music, and as Court organist in Weimar he is sure to have had wider access to works by European contemporaries....