Artistic Director Madeleine Easton directs and leads her specialist band of four singers and 13 period instrumentalists in two cantatas and a concerto to illustrate Bach’s work as a teacher and mentor among his many roles and the abundance of music he composed.

Dispensing with a choir for both cantatas, the choral pieces as well as the solos are sung by soprano Susannah Lawergren, alto Hannah Fraser, tenor Richard Butler and bass Andrew O’Connor. The opening chorus is monumental and the closing chorus more austere with the solos allocated to soprano, alto and bass, in this two-part cantata Brich dem Hungrigen dein Brot BWV 39.

Bach Akademie Australia performs Bach – the Benefactor. Screen capture courtesy Australian Digital Concert Hall.

Its Biblical text entreats the populace to be grateful to God and to share His gifts with the needy. The division in the movements was to accommodate the sermon. This is Bach at his sternest and most moralising, writing a cantata with a social purpose, intended to prick the conscience and focus the mind without indulging too much in the music, although it is hard not to marvel at its...