Season 1, episode 2

04 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by cantatasonmymind in 1723 Trinity season special series, Bach's life, Cantatas, Leipzig, Trinity

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according to Lutheran Church year, Bach, cantatas, Harnoncourt, James Gilchrist, John Eliot Gardiner

The Parable of the Great Supper / the Great Banquet, by anonymous Dutch painter “the Braunschweig (Brunswick) Monogrammist,” ca. 1525

Trinity season in the Lutheran Church year means no feast days until Christmas, no stories about Jesus’ life in the Gospel texts, and no Vox Christi bass recitatives. To still keep this blog exciting for myself and you loyal readers, I decided to make it into a true weekly series, and will be following all of Bach’s 1723 Leipzig cantatas until Advent, without taking any detours to his Weimar cantatas or later Leipzig cantatas.

A few things that make it irresistible for me to try this: Bach started working in Leipzig on the first Sunday after Trinity in 1723 (see last week’s blog post); the dates of the Lutheran Church year in 2016 are practically the same as in 1723 – off by only one day; and I believe that by following this 1723 sequence, we can better imagine how it must have been for the Leipzig audiences (congregation) to hear one cantata after the other, and perhaps get a little insight in how it must have been for Bach himself to write one after the other.

So, here we go with season 1, episode 2:

Previously on Weekly Cantata: Bach arrived in Leipzig on Saturday May 22, 1723,, and made his debut with cantata 75 Die Elenden sollen essen in the Nicolaikirche (St. Nicholas Church) on Sunday May 30, the first Sunday after Trinity.

The second Sunday after Trinity in 1723 marked Bach’s debut in the Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church). On Sunday June 6, he performed cantata 76 Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes there, and this one is even more impressive than 75, and includes a festive opening chorus which makes me think of Bach’s later Ascension Oratorio.

There are many similarities between cantata 75 and 76, the most obvious one being that they share the ambitious length of 14 movements in total, divided over two parts. From a superficial point of view, both cantatas start with a psalm text in the opening chorus, have challenging soprano arias, feature bass arias with trumpet, and -never seen again in later cantatas- an instrumental sinfonia at the start of the second part (after the sermon). However there are more (hidden) similarities and cross-references between the two, so that one could almost think about these two first cantatas of the 1723/1724 cycle as a diptych.

I appreciate Gardiner’s interpretation of cantata 76 the most of all recordings I listened to. And the universe will have it that this one was recorded in the Basilique de Saint-Denis (directly north of Paris), which was my subway stop for four fabulous music-filled months in 1994. In his journal from 2000, Gardiner writes that they were very concerned about the enormous size of this Gothic cathedral, and feared that a large audience (needed to balance out the acoustics) wouldn’t show up because it was the night of the France-Italy final in the Euro soccer competition. But everything turned out fine: there were more than 1200 people in the audience, and France won.

Listen to Gardiner’s recording of cantata 76 Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes on Spotify or on YouTube, or buy this recording on Amazon.

Cantata 76 starts with a text about heaven: the first and third verse of Psalm 19, Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes. To illustrate this, the heavenly trumpet (in cantata 75 not introduced until the start of the second half) is heard right away. The fugue on the text “Es ist keine Sprache noch Rede, da man nicht ihre Stimme höre” is fantastic, Bach at his best in my opinion.

After this, the text of the cantata refers to the Gospel reading of the day: the parable of the Great Supper from Luke 14: 16-24 about a man who has invited many guests to a Dinner/Supper/Banquet, receives one cancellation after the other, after which he decides to invite all the beggars and cripples his servant can find, and serves them the dinner instead, not leaving one place open for any of the previously invited guests. All this combined with the “Brotherly love” theme from the Epistle reading of the day: 1 John 3: 13-18.

Another example, though through a completely opposite story as the one from cantata 75, of why it is good to share food and love with others.

Besides the incredible opening chorus, the highlights of this cantata for me are: the soprano aria with violin/cello accompaniment (no. 3), the bass aria with trumpet (no. 5), the incredible sinfonia for oboe d’amore and viola da gamba at the start of the second half (no. 8), the dramatic, operatic tenor aria (no. 10, fabulously performed by James Gilchrist, including the “shake” Bach wrote on the word “Hasse”), and the alto recitative with viola da gamba (no. 11).

For those who have extra time: listen to the violin/cello duet in the soprano aria accompaniment in an unrivaled (as far as I am concerned) interpretation by Alice and Nikolaus Harnoncourt on their recording from 1976 (scroll to 06:11)

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Nikolaus & Alice Harnoncourt, 1951, before they were married, on tour with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra

Read the German text with English translations of this cantata here, and find the score here.

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Wieneke Gorter, June 4, 2016, links updated June 12, 2021.

The Leipzig Debut

29 Sunday May 2016

Posted by cantatasonmymind in 1723 Trinity season special series, Bach's life, Cantatas, Leipzig, Trinity

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Bach, cantatas, Carolyn Sampson, Daniel Taylor, John Eliot Gardiner, Mark Padmore, Peter Kooy, Phlippe Herreweghe

Lazarus and the Rich Man / Lazarus and Dives, Codex Aureus of Echternach, 11th century

On this First Sunday after Trinity (for short:Trinity 1), Sunday May 30, 1723, Bach started his first cycle of weekly cantatas in Leipzig. It was two days before his official installation, and one week after he and his family had arrived in the city.

Trinity is also the start of the part of the church year that deals exclusively with issues of faith and doctrine, instead of celebrating events from Jesus’ life, as was done in the period between Advent and Pentecost. This change must have been important to Bach too, because all three surviving cantatas for Trinity 1 are large-scale, musically ambitious works.

The composition with which Bach made his debut in the St. Nicholas Church (he would not perform in the St. Thomas Church until one week later) was cantata 75 Die Elenden sollen essen, a piece of considerable length, containing no less than 14 movements, seven before the sermon, seven after.

I prefer the recording by Herreweghe, which appears on the same CD as cantata 12 Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen.

Listen to Herreweghe’s recording of cantata 75 Die Elenden sollen essen (with soloists Carolyn Sampson, Daniel Taylor, Mark Padmore, and Peter Kooy) on YouTube

Purchase Herreweghe’s recording of cantata 75 Die Elenden sollen essen and two other cantatas on Amazon

Find the complete German text with English translation of this cantata here.

The text of the opening chorus is from Psalm 22, but it is strongly related to the Gospel of the day: the story of Lazarus (a poor leper, who lies in front of the door of a rich man’s house, asking the rich man for food every day) and Dives (the rich man, who ends up in hell when he dies because he didn’t share his blessings/wealth with those in need).

When I listen to the opening chorus, I keep wondering if Bach wrote a Kyrie in Köthen which he never finished or which got lost for another reason. This is not backed up by any of the commentary about this cantata, but in these first measures I can’t stop myself from hearing “Ky-ri-e-e-le–” in my head when the choir sings “Die-ie E-e-le–.” The music accents the second syllable of the word Elenden, while in the spoken language the stress would be on the first syllable. I find it strange that Bach would have ignored word stress in such an important composition, which he spent extra time on, and probably already wrote before he arrived in Leipzig (Gardiner notes that the paper of the manuscript was not from Leipzig, and that the handwriting was extremely neat). So I’m hoping something will turn up in my lifetime to substantiate this hunch I have ….

Wherever the opening chorus originated from, it is beautifully written, as are all the arias. The soprano aria has a tender, plaintive oboe d’amore accompaniment, the alto aria floats on a rich blanket of strings, and the bass aria is a show-off piece with virtuosic music for the singer as well as the trumpeter.

There is a symmetry to the order in which the recitatives and arias appear in the cantata which is rarely seen in other Bach cantatas.

In the first half:

Bass recitative – Tenor aria – Tenor Recitative – Soprano Aria – Soprano Recitative

in the second half this pattern is mirrored for the remaining voices:

Alto recitative – Alto Aria – Bass recitative – Bass Aria – Tenor Recitative

But of course it is typical for Bach to use mathematical design when wanting to make a lasting impression with a composition (such as with the St. Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor). Also the fact that there are 14 movements to this cantata is not a coincidence: it is the sum of the numbers B, A, C, and H in the alphabet.

There is more symmetry in the cantata: The text of the first half refers to the Gospel story from Luke about Lazarus and Dives, and talks about earthly life and material possessions. In contrast to this, the second half of the cantata moves up to a spiritual level, and up to heaven. This change is illustrated by the introduction of the instrument that was associated with heaven: the trumpet. In the opening movement of the second half of this cantata the trumpet plays the chorale tune with which the first half had ended, Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, and then later accompanies the bass in a stand-out virtuosic aria.

There is also more “showing off” in this cantata. As Gardiner points out, Bach seems to have wanted to make it clear that he was a skilled court composer (which he had been at Köthen before he took the position in Leipzig): after the French Ouverture of the opening chorus, all the arias together from a French Suite: The tenor aria is a Polonaise, the soprano aria a Minuet, the alto aria a Passepied, and the Bass aria a Gigue.

Wieneke Gorter, May 29, 2016