Bach’s six motets were written when he was Musical Director of St Thomas Church, Leipzig, and the Australian Chamber Choir was scheduled to perform them there over three concerts last year until COVID intervened.

Instead, the Melbourne choir has been presenting them in a single concert – a herculean and uplifting feat requiring great vocal stamina – and one of those performances is now available on demand through the choir’s website.

I urge you to go there – you will not be disappointed. And if you are in the area you can hear them live when they repeat the concert at the Basilica of St Mary of the Angels in Geelong on Friday, 10 December.

Directed as always by Douglas Lawrence, the ACC is in wonderful form for this concert against the bright and airy backdrop of  Melbourne’s Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Middle Park. From the joyful opening of the a cappella Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf in which help is sought through “Heavenly fire, sweet consolation”, to the magnificent Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, which so impressed Mozart when he heard it in Leipzig, the sheer...