Featured Album October 2026: Solomon's Knot "J S Bach: Köthener Trauermusik"

Here at The Early Music Shop, we're long-time fans of the baroque music collective Solomon's Knot, and their albums are often on our in-store playlists. Now, they have returned with a new recording, reconstructing J S Bach's 'Köthener Trauermusik' in a version imagined by Sydney-based composer (and former Solomon's Knot keyboardist) Chad Kelly. Their first recording for Linn Records, read on to discover more about this fascinating project which is available now as a deluxe 2CD set.

J S Bach: Köthener Trauermusik
Solomon's Knot

OUR FEATURED ALBUM FOR OCTOBER 2026

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From the artist's press release:

For its first album on Linn, Solomon’s Knot performs one of Bach’s most fascinating works. Although not a single note of the Köthener Trauermusik  survives, almost every other detail of the performance does: we know its date, the first performers, the librettist and the libretto. Reconstructed by Chad Kelly from various sources, chief among them Bach's first version of the Matthäus-Passion, this work was commissioned for both performance and this live recording by Solomon's Knot. Kelly’s reconstruction does not claim to be definitive; such certainty is unattainable and beside the point. Instead, he uses carefully considered creative licence to bring to life two elements central to the original: the sincerity of the text, and the context of the occasion for which it was written. As ‘one of the UK’s most innovative and imaginative ensembles’ (The Observer), the Baroque music collective Solomon’s Knot is in full swing in this performance recorded at the Dreieinigkeitskirche during the Tage Alter Musik Regensburg festival.

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Why The Early Music Shop loves "Köthener Trauermusik":

For its debut album on Linn, the baroque collective Solomon’s Knot performs one of Bach’s most fascinating works, despite the fact that not a single note of the Köthener Trauermusik (Köthen Funeral Music) survives. However, almost every other detail of the performance does, including its date, the librettist, the libretto and the original service leaflet. On 23–24 March 1729, funeral rites were held for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen who had been Bach’s employer when he served as Kapellmeister at Leopold’s court (1717–23); not only was he a cultured and generous master but also a good friend to the composer – he even agreed to be godfather to one of his children. Despite Bach having moved to Leipzig in 1723, when Leopold died it was to Bach that the court officials at Köthen turned for an appropriately substantial sequence of funeral music to mark Leopold’s passing.

With as much certainty as can be mustered, many scholars unite around the idea that the music for the Köthener Trauerode was repurposed – ‘parodied’, to use the correct term for adapting existing music to fit a new text – form the first version of the St Matthew Passion (1727) and the Trauerode ‘Lass, Fürstin’ (BWV198), also from 1727, for the Electress of Saxony. Chad Kelly's specially commissioned reconstruction draws on these two works, which also serve as the inspiration for any new elements, especially in terms of instrumentation. Kelly’s reconstruction does not claim to be definitive for such conviction is beyond reach and beside the point. He employs well-judged creative licence to bring to life the sincerity of the original text, and the context of the occasion for which it was written. While in the reconstruction the arias and choruses are fashioned from pre-existing, often familiar, music, the recitatives are newly composed in Bach’s manner.

This is Solomon’s Knot’s most ambitious recording to date. Recorded live at the Dreieinigkeitskirche during the Tage Alter Musik Regensburg festival, it is as inventive and pioneering as any of their previous recordings or performance projects. The emotional trajectory of the words and music are beautifully articulated by this most remarkable of period-performance groups: that it was recorded live contributes to the sense of immediacy. It would be hard to imagine this reconstructed Bach being better performed. Warmly recommended.

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Köthener Trauermusik is available from The Early Music Shop online or in-store!

Click here to order now!

Click below to watch Chad Kelly introduce his reconstruction of Bach's work in this short trailer: