The concert program Anna Magdalena Songbook: Home Suite Home sheds a fascinating light on the domestic life of Johann Sebastian Bach—and takes some creative liberties, too.

The great composer’s second wife, Anna Magdalena Wilcke, was herself a musician, a soprano singer who was able to appreciate his genius and transcribe his works. A few years after their marriage, Bach gave her two “notebooks”—the “Notenbüchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach” of 1722 and 1725—filled with keyboard and vocal music. Bach wrote most of these compositions—minuets, rondeaux, polonaises, chorales, sonatas, preludes, musettes, marches, gavottes—but there were also compositions by friends.

Pieces from the “Notenbüchlein” make up the core of the program for Anna Magdalena Songbook, put together by harpsichordist and organist Christopher Bagan. However, according to soprano Ellen Hargis, in order to paint a broader musical picture of life in the Bach household in the 1720s, Bagan also chose other works by Johann Sebastian, his sons, and associates.

“It starts with the wedding,” she says, reached in Portland, Oregon. “And it looks at domestic music-making and the adaptation of some of Bach’s bigger pieces for household use, so there’s more of a narrative rather than having a random selection of the nicest music. It’s a much more interesting way to listen to music that in its time wasn’t presented in a concert format, but was more part of the fabric of everyday life. If we can create that kind of context for the audience with our program, we think it enriches the experience and humanizes it.”

Sadly, not much is known about Anna Magdalena. She was 16 years younger than her husband, and sang at the court in Köthen, where Bach was the director of music. As for her character, the music that he wrote and dedicated to her provides the best insights.

“The look we get of Anna Magdalena from the notebooks is sweet and tender,” says Hargis. “There are theories about whether she might have composed some of these pieces or had a hand in arranging them, but the evidence is inconclusive. I think the most fascinating thing is to think of her as a competent musician who wanted to be able to enjoy, say, a big cantata and didn’t have the resources at home. So you have things like the little excerpt from Ich Habe Genug!—the cantata that was arranged so many times for different voices and finally becomes this wonderful aria. It’s within the domestic realm but still has the taste and the appetite for the rich music Bach was writing for the church.”

For Anna Magdalena Songbook, Hargis and Bagan are joined by harpsichordist and organist Michael Jarvis and lutenist Lucas Harris, and choreographer Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière performs dances of the time.

“Some people may wonder about dancing to Bach,” says Lacoursière, reached at her Montreal studio-home. “But he was greatly influenced by French music and one of his best friends was Jean-Baptiste Volumier, a dancing master as well as a violinist and composer. I’m performing to some of the Suites Françaises in the notebooks, which are French dances, though they weren’t named.”

Lacoursière will dance the minuet, the gigue, and the rigaudon—and a courante by Sylvius Leopold Weiss. “There’s also a burlesca that I’ve choreographed for an harlequine [a female harlequin], and a dance interpretation of one of the pieces that’s a sarabande. I’m presenting it in a more modern style, and I’ve kept just a bodice and tights for the costume so people can see the complete leg movements—which are concealed under skirts in the other dances. I want to give the baroque material more of an interpretation.”

Mrs. Bach and family would be greatly entertained.

Anna Magdalena Songbook: Home Suite Home is at Christ Church Cathedral on Saturday (August 6) as part of the Vancouver Bach Festival.