John Eliot Gardiner

On The Bach Hour, the composer's Cantata No. 19, for St. Michael and All Angels, expresses a terrifying, visceral quality of battle, and a hope for protection and safety.

The mandolin virtuoso talks with host Brian McCreath about the rich musical environment of his childhood, what led him to the mandolin, and the role Bach's music plays in his artistic life.

In a performance at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Germany, Iranian-born pianist Ramin Bahrami is the soloist in Bach's emotionally probing D minor concerto.

On The Bach Hour, the Polish pianist's earliest musical experiences, as a five-year-old learning the pipe organ, are the foundation of an exceptionally poetic approach to Bach's Partita No. 3.

On The Bach Hour, the power of water and its spiritual dimensions are at the heart of Bach's Cantata No. 7, led by John Eliot Gardiner, and harpist Catrin Finch performs the composer's Italian Concerto.

On The Bach Hour, Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra channel the best of modern and historically informed performance ideas into the composer's Brandenburg Concerto No. 6.

On The Bach Hour, the Welsh soprano is the soloist in the first recording of a cantata that had been lost for almost three centuries, a discovery described by Harvard University's Christoph Wolff.

On The Bach Hour, a legendary instrument at Schlosskirche Altenburg - played when it was new by the composer himself - transmits an astonishing range of sonic color in the Passacaglia in C minor and Cantata 146.

On The Bach Hour, John Eliot Gardiner leads the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists in the composer's Cantata 182, and Pieter Wispelwey performs the Suite No. 5 for solo cello.

On The Bach Hour, John Eliot Gardiner conducts an artistically riveting work with roots in the cultural fears and biases of the composer's time and place.