Weekly Cantata

~ Memories, musings, and movie script fantasies inspired by Bach cantatas, along with recommendations for recordings

Weekly Cantata

Monthly Archives: July 2017

The perfect combination of Bach’s writing & Herreweghe’s interpretation

29 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by cantatasonmymind in Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Leipzig, Trinity

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Agnès Mellon, Collegium Vocale Gent, Howard Crook, Peter Kooy, Phlippe Herreweghe

dt5476

The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes by Jacopo Tintoretto, circa 1545-1550, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

1724: Bach has returned from his visit to Köthen (see previous post).

2017: I am still in Europe, but my daughter’s choir tour is done, and so is my daily commitment to write a blog for the parents who stayed back in California.

As I continue to follow Bach in 1724, the cantata for today, the 7th Sunday after Trinity, is cantata 107 Was willst du dich betrüben. If you only listen to one cantata this summer I suggest you listen to Herreweghe’s recording of this one. You will not regret the perfect combination of some of Bach’s best writing with Herreweghe’s sensitive interpretation. Find Herreweghe’s recording (from 1993, with Agnès Mellon, soprano; Howard Crook, tenor; and Peter Kooij, bass) here on YouTube. Consider purchasing it here — this album also contains the beautiful cantata 93 from two weeks ago. My favorite movements are the fabulous opening chorus, the bass recitative and aria that follows, superbly sung by Peter Kooij, and the tenor aria because of the flutes. I also love Agnès Mellon’s angelic singing in the soprano aria.

Find the text and translations here, and the score here.

A few weeks ago I explained that Bach started his second Leipzig cycle with a series of chorale cantatas, and that he would stick to that same format for nine and half months (read more about this in this post). He built all 44 cantatas in this period on a similar foundation: setting the verses of the chorale verbatim for the opening and closing choruses, while setting poetry based on the verses for the inner movements. While Bach collaborated with a librettist (probably the same one) for all of these cantatas, there was one exception within that 1724/1725 series: all of the words for cantata 107 Was willst du dich betrüben were copied verbatim from the chorale text.

We can only speculate as to why this happened. His librettist might have been sick or away.  Or did Bach perhaps compose this cantata during his visit to Köthen (see last week’s post)? We only know that he and Anna Magdalena performed at the court in Köthen, but we don’t know how long they stayed there.

I have loved this cantata 107 since I first heard it on the Herreweghe recording in the early 1990s. Just listen to that opening chorus: Bach’s excellent and poignant writing combined with the fabulous sustained lines of the Collegium Vocale chorus (read my posts about their sopranos here and their altos here) and Herreweghe’s calm tempo, and continuous focus on the direction and destination of the musical lines.

I am in movie-script mode again and taking the liberty to imagine Bach writing this cantata in Köthen, maybe even performing (parts of) it there too with all the wonderful musicians at that court, and Anna Magdalena singing the soprano aria. Bach could very well have been inspired by the change of scenery, time away from his hectic Leipzig house, and enjoying the company of his former colleagues in Köthen, all excellent musicians. If we follow this train of thought, it is not surprising that he assigns 2/3 of the principal music in the opening chorus to the orchestra and only 1/3 to the choir, and writes the closing chorus as if it were one of his orchestral suites. It has been suggested that Bach convinced one of the flute players at the Köthen court, Johann Gottlieb Würdig, to accompany him to Leipzig and stay there for a few months.

Wieneke Gorter, July 27, 2017.

 

 

 

A mini-break with Anna Magdalena

22 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by cantatasonmymind in Bach's life, Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Leipzig

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bilcoplan

Köthen court plan

There is no cantata for Trinity 6 from 1724.  A little research gives the reason: Bach took a trip with his wife Anna Magdalena to the court of Köthen, where they had both worked until their move to Leipzig in 1723.

According to The New Bach Reader, the court account books state the following for July 18, 1724:

“To the Director Musices Bach and his wife, who performed, in settlement rthl* 60”

We don’t know what they performed and for exactly how many days they stayed, but Bach was back in time to compose and rehearse the cantata for Trinity 7 that year.

*rthl = Reichsthaler

Wieneke Gorter, July 15, 2017.

Blogging from Greece

15 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by cantatasonmymind in Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Leipzig, Trinity

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Agnès Mellon, BWV 93, Charles Brett, Howard Crook, Peter Kooy, Phlippe Herreweghe

File Jul 15, 15 46 01.jpeg
Kaisariani monastery near Athens, Greece
bloggingfromGreece

For today, the 5th Sunday after Trinity, I’m running out of time to write a post about the beautiful cantata 93 Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten Bach wrote for this Sunday in 1724. So I’ll just give you my favorite recording (by Herreweghe, with soloists Agnès Mellon, soprano; Charles Brett, countertenor; Howard Crook, tenor; and Peter Kooij, bass), the text & translations, and the score.

My reason is a good one: I’m on tour with my daughter’s youth choir to Greece, and I’m in charge of the blog for that tour (so parents who stay at home know we’re still alive and happy) and that’s taking up most of my limited wifi time on the island of Syros. It’s a really hard life being a blogger here 😉

kaisariani_interior.jpg

I’m very happy, because at the beginning of this week I got to see the 11th/12th century Kaisariani monastery, about 10 kilometers outside of Athens. I found out about this building once while looking for images for this blog. The cross-in-square, domed church has some beautiful wall and ceiling paintings dating from the 18th century; those in the narthex date back to 1682.

I loved seeing the paintings “live” and took lots of pictures to use in future blog posts, but also very much enjoyed the quiet (only a handful of other tourists were there), the forest air, and the gardens:

kaisariani_plants

Wieneke Gorter, July 15, 2017.

Weekly Cantata on Break this week

08 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by cantatasonmymind in Cantatas

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There is no cantata for the 4th Sunday after Trinity from 1724, because that year it fell on the same day as The Feast of the Visitation. See my previous post for a longer explanation, and for a list of upcoming cantatas.

 

A double bill for July 2

01 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by cantatasonmymind in Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Leipzig, Trinity

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Bach Collegium Japan, Deborah York, Gerd Türk, Pascal Bertin, Peter Kooy, Ton Koopman

In my effort to follow Bach’s compositions in the order in which he wrote them in 1724, I sometimes get a bit confused, because in 2017 the Sundays of the church year are exactly one week later than in 1724. Where it gets tricky is around the Feast days of St. John and the Visitation of Mary, which are always on the same date: June 24 and July 2 respectively.

See how the dates of 1724 compare to the dates of 2017 in this table here below, and you’ll understand my dilemma for today: in Bach’s time, if the feast of the Visitation fell on a Sunday, it would cancel out the theme and thus the cantata for that Sunday. That is why there is no cantata for Trinity 4 from 1724, and why Weekly Cantata will be on break next week.

Sunday/Feast day17242017Cantata
Trinity 1June 11June 1820: O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort
Trinity 2June 18June 252: Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein
St. John (Johannis)June 24June 247: Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam
Trinity 3June 25(July 2)135: Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder
Visitation (Mariä Heimsuchung)July 2July 210: Meine Seele erhebt den Herren
Trinity 4July 2July 9(no cantata from 1724 because same day as Visitation)
Trinity 5July 9July 1693: Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten
Trinity 6July 16July 23(no cantata from 1724 because of Bach’s visit to Köthen)
Trinity 7July 23July 30107: Was willst du dich betrüben
Trinity 8July 30Aug 6178 Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält

So officially, I should present you only with the cantata for the feast of the Visitation today, but since we are listening in order of 1724, I give you some highlights of cantata 135 Ach Herr mich armen Sünder first. An update from 2021: Since I first wrote this post, a beautiful live video recording of this cantata has been released on YouTube by the J.S. Bach Foundation. Find it here.

The cantata is the last of the set of four I described in this post, and thus has the cantus firmus in the bass in the opening chorus. This is nicely done on the J.S. Bach Foundation recording, with a trombone doubling the choral bass part. But the best choral basses are still on the recording by Bach Collegium Japan. Listen to that recording on Spotify.

While the boy sopranos have a bit more work in the opening chorus (as was the case the last two weeks), there is again no soprano aria in this cantata. The Leipzig congregations haven’s heard a soprano solo since Trinity Sunday.

But then, on July 2, 1724, they get to hear the cantata for the feast of the Visitation: cantata 10 Meine Seel erhebt den Herren. With a soprano aria directly after the opening chorus, and a virtuoso one too. It might be that a talented new student had enrolled in the school, or Bach was finally ready training one, or there is a talented boy visiting for the holiday.* There is a very nice live video of Ton Koopman performing this in the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig during the Bach Festival there in 2003, with Deborah York singing the soprano aria.

Wieneke Gorter, July 1, 2017. Updated March 26, 2020, and June 19, 2021.

*Read more about the possibility of musicians visiting for this feast day in my post from last year about the Visitation. Read more about the soprano problem in this post.

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