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Bach, the Universe & Everything: The Beauty of Falling

London, King's Place

Sunday 22 November 2026, 11:30

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Music

DERING Domine non sum dignus
JS BACH Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4
(Christ lay in death’s bonds)
Performers

Steven Devine series music director/organ

with
Claudia de Rham guest speaker

Duration

75 minutes

Price

£22 + fees

Everything falls into place. Gravity. Death. Life. Three forces that shape our existence, yet they remain mysteries we are still trying to understand.

Christ lag in Todes Banden is one of Bach’s earliest cantatas. Perhaps even the earliest. He returned to it through his life, revising and reshaping it so much that it’s difficult to tell which parts of the original survive. Unfolding as a series of variations on an Easter chorale by Martin Luther, that would have been so well known to Bach’s congregation, its vivd imagery traces a trajectory of life triumphing over death, .

We might think gravity is one mystery we’ve solved. But Claudia de Rham has spent her entire life playing with it in her quest to truly understand both its feeling and fundamental nature. She is Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London.

Richard Dering

This season features motets by the English composer Richard Dering (c.1580–1630). A Catholic convert, he spent much of his career working in continental Europe before returning to England in 1625 to serve in the court of Queen Henrietta Maria. Dering’s music bridged the Renaissance and Baroque styles.

Expect awe, beauty and big ideas

Bach, the Universe and Everything returns with a new season of adventures.

Inspired by the music of JS Bach, composer and intergalactic genius, this is a concert season with a difference.

This season, Bach, the Universe and Everything chronicles humanity’s quest to understand the cosmos. From the revolutionary instruments that opened our ancestors’ eyes to the night sky to the giant telescopes now peering deeper into space than ever before, we chart the breakthroughs that changed everything. We’ll unravel the force that binds the universe together, witness humanity’s determination to explore further from our planet than we’ve gone before, and discover how the atmosphere that sustains life on Earth is created.

Across six concerts, music and science combine to tell the story of humanity’s enduring search to understand the universe and our place within it.

Violinist Julia Kuhn and bass player Cecelia Bryggemyer playing in the playground at Acland burghley School

Japanese conductor Masaaki Suzuki conducts the OAE with singer Florian Stortz

OAE musicians run a workshop in a school classroom

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We are redefining what it means to be an orchestra in the 2020s. Support the OAE today.

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Bach, the Universe & Everything: The Beauty of Falling

London, King's Place

Sunday 22 November 2026, 11:30

Event detail

Everything falls into place. Gravity. Death. Life. Three forces that shape our existence, yet they remain mysteries we are still trying to understand.

Richard Dering

Expect awe, beauty and big ideas

Did you know you can support the OAE?

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