The Bach Hour
Sundays 6-7am, Mondays midnight-2am
The virtually limitless well of music by J.S. Bach has always had a prominent place on radio airwaves in Boston. Whether it’s an iconic work like the Toccata and Fugue in D minor or a rarely heard but emotionally riveting church cantata, Bach’s music is a touchstone, returning listeners to a foundation on which so much subsequent music has been built.
Hear The Bach Hour each Sunday at 6am on 99.5 WCRB, as well as Mondays, midnight-2am. And listen on demand for two weeks after broadcast.
Latest Episodes
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On The Bach Hour, John Eliot Gardiner leads the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists in a work of gripping emotional power, the Cantata No. 19, for St. Michael and All Angels. -
A performance at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition leads to a thriving concert career, and Philippe Herreweghe leads the Cantata No. 161 on The Bach Hour.
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On The Bach Hour, the Principal Flutist of the Berlin Philharmonic is joined by his colleagues for one of Bach’s most virtuosic creations for his instrument.
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On The Bach Hour, a prosaic name obscures the brilliance and emotional impact of the composer’s music, performed by one of today’s most thoughtful and dynamic pianists.
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On The Bach Hour, the Los Angeles-based violinist performs both parts - each on a different Stradivarius instrument - of one of the composer’s most dramatic concertos.
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On The Bach Hour, the Concertmaster of Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society talks about her journey to period instrument performance and the centrality of Bach’s music in her artistic life.
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The Artistic Director of the Handel and Haydn Society talks with host Brian McCreath about the unique expressions of Bach’s motets and directs one of them, Jesu, meine Freude, on The Bach Hour.
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On The Bach Hour, destruction on a literally Biblical scale is at the foundation of music that grapples with mysteries and uncertainties that remain as relevant today as when Bach composed it.
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On The Bach Hour, Ton Koopman leads Amsterdam Baroque in a work that broke new ground for the composer, expressing a path from “anxious conscience” to an embrace of self-assurance.
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In a performance at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Germany, pianist Ramin Bahrami is the soloist in Bach's emotionally probing D minor concerto, and John Eliot Gardiner conducts the Cantata No. 45.
