Maarten Engeltjes

Forgotten Arias by Maarten Engeltjes

Around the age of five, countertenor Maarten Engeltjes sang Bach's St. Matthew's Passion for the first time, as a boy soprano in the opening chorus. The adult singers towered above him. From their voices one repeating word released itself, which invaded his child's soul: Sehet! See! And Engeltjes saw and sang. After that evening he spent days in his bedroom. 'Maarten only listens to Bach', his mother wrote in a diary.

'Forgotten arias should invite not only Bach connoisseurs, but especially a new audience, to experience my own amazement. And by "forgotten" I don't claim that we don't know these pearls, but that we often don't notice them in the vast ocean of over two hundred Bach cantatas.'