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First broadcast, Friday 21 Mar 2008 on BBC FOUR
In the fourth and final episode of serie 1, Simon Beale's travels bring him to Germany where Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation led to a musical revolution and ultimately to the glorious works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Simon's journey includes Eisenach, in Eastern Germany, where Bach was born and the extraordinary space of the Thomaskirke in Leipzig where the composer spent much of his career. Here he discovers how Johann Sebastian Bach was in many ways a one man music factory, who for many years produced for the church work of the very highest quality, week after week after week. Bach wrote over a thousand pieces of music, and nearly two thirds of them he produced for the Lutheran Church.
Throughout the programme, in the period setting of St George's Lutheran Church in East London, conductor Harry Christophers leads singers from 'The Sixteen' and a small group of baroque instrumentalists through some of the key repertoire - including: 'Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring', one of Bach's most celebrated religious works, which is based on a Lutheran hymn tune.
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