Setting the story of the Good Samaritan to music, in three parts.

05 Saturday Sep 2020

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The Good Samaritan by Balthasar van Cortbemde, 1647. Oil on Canvas. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium. More about this painting at the end of this post.

Bach wrote three cantatas for this Sunday, the 13th after Trinity, all more or less related to the story of the Good Samaritan. In 1723 he writes the incredibly beautiful Cantata 77 Du sollt Gott, deinen Herren, lieben (You must love God, your Lord). Read about it in my post from 2016. Along with many fellow members of California Bach Society I had the pleasure of singing this cantata earlier this summer, each of us sitting in front of our computer in our own home. Even though we could only see each other on a computer screen and not hear each other sing, it was a beautiful and meaningful experience. And while I tend to focus on the opening chorus and the alto aria when thinking about this cantata, several of my friends pointed out that the texts are still, or again, very appropriate today. Take for example the text of the tenor recitative:

Gib mir dabei, mein Gott! ein Samariterherz,
For this purpose, my God, give me the Samaritan’s heart
Dass ich zugleich den Nächsten liebe
so that I can at once love my neighbor
Und mich bei seinem Schmerz
and in his sorrow
Auch über ihn betrübe,
feel concern for him
Damit ich nicht bei ihm vorübergeh
so that I shall not pass him by
Und ihn in seiner Not nicht lasse.
and leave him in his distress.
Gib, dass ich Eigenliebe hasse,
Grant that I may hate self-love,
So wirst du mir dereinst das Freudenleben
then you will grant me one day a joyous life
Nach meinem Wunsch, jedoch aus Gnaden geben
according to my desire, from your grace.

In 1724, within the framework of the 1724/1725 series of chorale cantatas (his second year of cantata compositions in Leipzig)* Bach writes Cantata 33 Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ (Solely towards you, Lord Jesus Christ).  Because the libretto is based much more on the chorale text than on the Gospel text, it includes only one quote from the Bible story: “I may love my neighbour as myself.” But while it is just one line of text, Bach doesn’t let it go unnoticed, and turns that fifth verse of the libretto into a duet that has all the characteristics of a love duet from the Venetian operas of the time. At least the instrumentalists in the orchestra must have gotten the reference loud and clear. This also proves that the oh-so-cute soprano-alto duet from Cantata 78 (which Bach wrote one week later) didn’t come out of the blue. Here is the artists’ study for it, albeit written for tenor and bass. Read all this and more in my post from 2017.

From Trinity Sunday 1723 to Trinity Sunday 1725, Bach had provided the Leipzig churches with a cantata for almost every Sunday and Feast day. But for the Sundays between Trinity and Christmas 1725, we have only a handful of his cantatas left.** Cantata 164 Ihr, die ihr euch von Christo nennet (You, who take your name from Christ) is among these. Bach saw his church music as a means to “educate his neighbor” about Christian theology, and it seems that in this case, a third cantata for this Sunday was needed: he was not done educating his neighbors about the story of the Good Samaritan. In the parable, the priest and the Levite pass the wounded man without showing mercy. In the libretto of this cantata, this example is turned onto the Christian believers themselves: 

You, who take your name from Christ, where is to be found the mercy by which people recognize members of Christ?

It is far, far away from you. Your hearts should be rich in love, but they are harder than a stone.

Because of the preaching character of that first text, it seems only fitting that Bach doesn’t set this as a chorus, but as a tenor aria, as if to better scold the congregation. The use of two flutes (in the alto aria) is unusual for a cantata, and makes me think of the St. Matthew Passion. Bach must have wanted to stress the loveliness of the text in that aria. Watch a live performance of this cantata by the J.S. Bach Foundation here on YouTube. Soloists in this performance are Monika Mauch, soprano; Jan Börner, alto; Jakob Pilgram, tenor; and Markus Volpert, Bass.

Find the texts & translations of this cantata here, and the score here.

Wieneke Gorter, September 5, 2020.

A little more about the painting:

At a distance, on the left, behind a tree, we see the Levite retreating. Still further away, reading a book, is the priest. This is the only known work of this painter, Balthasar van Cortbemde. It was most probably commissioned by the guild of surgeons in Antwerp in 1647, because it was displayed in their Chamber from 1647 to 1798. It became property of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in 1810.

*to learn more about Bach’s series of chorale cantatas, start reading here

**we don’t know if the missing cantatas were composed but then were lost, or if they were simply never composed because Bach started to focus on other things.

Sinful pride versus humility

22 Saturday Aug 2020

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Church interior with the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican by Dutch painters Dirck van Delen (church interior) and Cornelis van Poelenburch (figures), 1653. Oil on panel. The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, USA, currently not on view.

The reading for this Sunday, the 11th after Trinity, is the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (or Tax Collector) from the Gospel of Luke. In the parable, these two men come into the temple to pray around the same time, but talk to God in very different ways. While the Pharisee puts on a fake show about how good he is, the tax collector is very humble, “wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven” and asks for forgiveness.

“There’s something with this Sunday,” I wrote three years ago, and I still feel that way when I listen to the cantatas Bach wrote for this Sunday in 1723 and 1724.

In 1723, his first year in Leipzig, Bach performed two cantatas on this Sunday: Cantata 179 Siehe zu, daß deine Gottesfurcht kein Heuchelei sei (See that your fear of God is not hypocrisy) before the sermon, and his solo cantata for soprano Cantata 199 Mein Herze schwimmt in Blut (from his early years in Weimar) afterwards. Cantata 199 is only loosely related to the Gospel story, and was probably never written with this story in mind. Because of its multi-layered history and the many different recordings, I will discuss that composition some other time.

Cantata 179 focuses on the hypocrisy of the Pharisee, and just like cantatas 46 and 102 I discussed last week, it must have been one of Bach’s own favorites, because he re-used three movements in later works. Read all about it in my post from 2016, which I have updated with better images and new video links.

In 1724, Bach wrote cantata 113 Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut, which, surprise, surprise, focuses on the Publican asking for mercy. The only recording that does this cantata justice and gives me the good kind of stomachache is the one by Bach Collegium Japan. Peter Kooij’s and Robin Blaze’s singing is outstanding, and Yukari Nonoshita and Robin Blaze make the duet into a lovely piece of music, which is–judging from a lot of other recordings–not an easy thing to do. I updated my blog post from 2017 with all the correct links to stream or purchase this recording. Please find it here.

Wieneke Gorter, August 22, 2020.

Among Bach’s own favorites: BWV 46 and 102 for Trinity 10

16 Sunday Aug 2020

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  • Marcel Ponseele
  • Damien Guillon, photo by Julien Mignot

We don’t have any letters in which Bach writes about his own compositions, so we officially don’t know which ones were his own favorites. But when we see which cantatas he gave a “second life” in another work, and which cantatas were performed by his sons, we can make an educated guess.

Two of these cantatas, Cantata 46 Schauet doch und sehet, ob irgend ein Schmerz sei (from 1723) and Cantata 102 Herr, deine Augen sehen nach dem Glauben! (from 1726), were written for this Sunday, the 10th after Trinity.

Bach gave the opening chorus from Cantata 46 Schauet doch und sehet, ob irgend ein Schmerz sei a second life in the Qui Tollis in his Mass in B minor. Find a YouTube video of just that opening chorus, from Herreweghe’s performance at the 2013 Saintes Festival in France, here. Find my post from 2016 about this cantata, with links to translations, score, and my favorite recording here.

Cantata 102 Herr, deine Augen sehen nach dem Glauben! received even more second lives (see table below), and was performed at least twice in Hamburg by Bach’s second surviving son, Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach. My favorite performance of this cantata was the one by Herreweghe I attended in January 2018 at the Bruges Bach Festival, with Dorothee Mields, Alex Potter, Thomas Hobbs, and Peter Kooij. Alas there is no recording of this. Of all recordings currently available, my favorite is here on YouTube, by oboist Marcel Ponseele’s Ensemble Il Gardellino, with Damien Guillon, countertenor; Marcus Ullman, tenor; and Lieven Termont, bass. Especially the Aria Weh der Seele, die den Schaden by countertenor Damien Guillon and oboist Marcel Ponseele (both pictured at the top of this post) is to die for, and this combination of singer and oboist is simply unrivaled by any other recordings.

Find the texts & translations of Cantata 102 here, and the score here.

Movement from Cantata 102Movement in later work
Opening chorusOpening chorus of the Missa Brevis in g minor, BWV 235
Alto ariaSoprano aria “Qui tollis peccata mundi” of the Missa Brevis in F Major, BWV 233
Tenor ariaAlto aria “Quoniam to solus sanctus” of the Missa Brevis in F Major, BWV 233

A little more about the early “revival” of this cantata by Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach. In 1768, C.Ph.E. Bach succeeded Telemann as music director of the five largest churches in Hamburg, and remained in that position until his death in 1788. As such, he performed a handful of his father’s cantatas, albeit with adaptations. In 1776 or 1777 as well as in 1781, he performed Cantata 102 Herr, deine Augen sehen nach dem Glauben!

Adolf Bernhard Marx

These early “promotions” of this cantata must have inspired more performances or at least discussions about them, and eventually this composition along with some other cantatas likely reached the circle around Mendelssohn. In 1830, shortly after Mendelssohn’s Berlin revival of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in 1829, Adolf Bernhard Marx published three Bach cantatas BWV nrs 101, 102, and 103. It was the firsts time since 1709 that a Bach cantata appeared in print.

Wieneke Gorter, August 16, 2020.

Cantata 105 – Herreweghe forever

08 Saturday Aug 2020

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In my humble opinion, the best cantata Bach wrote for this 9th Sunday after Trinity is Cantata 105 Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht. This cantata has one of the best opening choruses Bach ever wrote, and I find the soprano aria and the bass arioso very moving. And as far as interpretations and recordings of this cantata go, for me, Herreweghe’s always rises above all others. In my post from 2016 I discuss his 1992 and 2012 recordings of this cantata. Please find that post here. It has all the links for recordings, texts & translations, and score, it tells you what to listen for in the music, and also explains why this Cantata 105 was Bach’s first real Leipzig cantata.

In January 2018, I had the good fortune to attend three Bach cantata concerts by Herreweghe, the first two in Bruges, the third one in Paris.* The program in Paris featured Cantata 105, everyone was in top form, and it was terrific to see Herreweghe conduct this piece that he and his ensemble know so well. It made me wish for a third Herreweghe recording of this cantata, because Dorothee Mields (not singing on the 1992 or 2012 recording), was mesmerizing in the “Wir zittern und wanken” aria and Peter Kooij’s strong rendition of the bass arioso almost brought me to tears.

Applause at the end of the concert in the Eglise St. Roch in Paris, January 30, 2018. From left to right in front row: Peter Kooij, Thomas Hobbs, Philippe Herreweghe, Alex Potter, Dorothee Mields. Photo by Aube Neau/Luc Barrière, published with permission.

Wieneke Gorter, August 8, 2020.

*To read more about these concerts in Bruges and Paris, find my posts from January 2018 here and here.

First countertenor loves (BWV 136 and 45 for Trinity 8)

02 Sunday Aug 2020

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  • Kai Wessel
  • Gérard Lesne

Bach wrote three cantatas for this Sunday, and since my favorite recordings (for now)* of two of those feature my first and second countertenor loves, Gérard Lesne and Kai Wessel, I thought it might be nice to talk a bit about how I came to appreciate these singers.

Because I grew up listening to Bach cantatas from the cantata recording project by Leonhardt and Harnoncourt, hearing these every Sunday from when I was a small child, I was completely used to alto arias being sung by countertenors. I have become better at it, but sometimes I still feel as if I have to consciously switch something in my brain before I can listen to a female alto sing Bach and take it seriously.

However, none of the alto arias from that Leonhardt/Harnoncourt project (1970-1989), stayed with me the way many of the soprano, tenor, and bass arias did. The voices of René Jacobs or Paul Esswood just never blew me away nor did their singing truly move me. I remember enjoying Michael Chance’s singing on recordings of English Baroque composers and in the arias he sang in the live performance of Bach’s St. John Passion with Harnoncourt I mentioned in this post. But still, not blown away.

That all changed the summer of 1988 or 1989. Still a teenager, I had started volunteering for the Utrecht Early Music Festival in 1987. I did that for several years and then was on the summer staff for a few years as well, all this in the team that managed the Exhibition. The booth right around the corner from our own information booth was staffed by the best CD curator I’ve ever met, Joost. He went to all the concerts, and knew all the Early Music recordings, and I LOVED the recordings he recommended. It was through him that I learned about Gérard Lesne. The second or third year I was there, Joost was selling Lesne’s Vivaldi CD from 1988 to everyone with the words “Buy this. Listen to it. If you come back to me, look me in the eye, and can tell me without any sign of emotion that you didn’t like it, I’ll take it back.” (or, as he literally said in Dutch: “Als je me met droge ogen kunt vertellen dat je het niks vond, dan neem ik hem terug.”) I became a fan, and will never forget hearing Lesne live, singing Charpentier, in the Chapelle Royale of Versailles in the Holy Week of 1994.

Gérard Lesne is featured on a live audio recording from 1988 of Cantata 45 Es ist dir gesagt, Mensch, was gut ist which you can find here on YouTube. It is from a concert on October 25, 1988, in the Notre Dame du Travail church in Paris, by La Chapelle Royale (one of Herreweghe’s ensembles), conducted by Gustav Leonhardt. Other soloists are John Elwes, tenor; and Peter Kooij, bass.

Bach wrote this Cantata 45 in 1726 for the 8th Sunday after Trinity. Please find the score here, and the texts & translations here.

The Notre Dame du Travail church, in the Montparnasse neighborhood of Paris, where the 1988 concert took place

My blog post from 2016 about Cantata 136 Erforsche mich, Gott, und erfahre mein Herz spotlights my second countertenor love: Kai Wessel. His voice and interpretation was nothing short of a sensation for me when Ton Koopman’s recording of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion came out in 1993. That a countertenor could also have such a beautiful tenor quality to his voice was new to me, and I found his singing incredibly moving. Thanks to this, I gained new appreciation for the “Erbarme dich” aria. Because of Kai Wessel singing the alto aria, the Bach Collegium Japan recording I recommended in 2016 is still my favorite interpretation of Cantata 136, though the live performance by the J.S. Bach Foundation from 2011 is very well done too, and that video is exciting because you can see the corno da tirarsi** in action in the amazing opening chorus.

Wieneke Gorter, August 2, 2020.

*This might change soon, because Herreweghe recorded this cantata program, including BWV 45, at the end of January 2020. I will let you know when this recording comes out. It is the first time they have recorded BWV 45 and 118, and I can’t wait to hear Alex Potter in BWV 198, and look forward to hearing BWV 78 with Dorothee Mields and Alex Potter in the famous duet, and Thomas Hobbs in the gorgeous but often overlooked tenor aria.

**to read more about the corno da tirarsi, and to see a picture of the instrument, go to this blog post from November 2019.

The Bachs’ summer trip to Köthen in 1724, new insights, and new videos (BWV 107)

25 Saturday Jul 2020

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Backside of the complex in which Bach rented an apartment in Köthen from 1719 to 1723. His wedding to Anna Magdalena in December 1721 was celebrated in this house, and several of their fellow court musicians had an apartment here too.

This week I’ve been paying a bit more attention to all the YouTube channels I subscribe to. So I can point you just in time to the live recording of cantata 107 Was willst du dich betrüben by the J.S Bach Foundation. Soloists are Julia Doyle, soprano; Makoto Sakurada, tenor; and Wolf-Matthias Friedrich, bass. My favorite recording of this cantata is still the one by Herreweghe from 1993 (the lines in the opening chorus! the bass solos!) but I love this one by the Bach Foundation too. It is very well done and very moving, and with no live concerts here in California at all yet, I appreciate watching live performances even more right now.

Another YouTube discovery I especially enjoy this Covid summer is the “Encountering Bach” documentary series. This wonderful production by Bachfest Malaysia currently has six episodes available, and more are still to come. The episodes are nice and short (between 8 and 13 minutes), but full of information, and very well geared towards a global audience. Bachfest Malaysia’s artistic director David Chin travels to all the places where Bach worked, and he does this together with German Bach specialist Michael Maul.* In all the locations they get help from local experts, from a soprano soloist who’s also a St. Thomas School mom, to the organist who nowadays plays the “Bach organ” in Arnstadt, to a manuscript specialist of the Bach Archives in Leipzig. Believe it or not, but I myself have never visited any of these places, and I travel vicariously through their experiences.

For the benefit of some more background for this blog post, I’d like you to watch episode 5, which is about Bach’s time in Köthen, and how he appreciated his employer there. It is no problem to watch this before you watch the other episodes. If you have more time, treat yourself to the entire series.

Episode 5 explains that Bach’s employer in Köthen belonged to the Calvinist church, where music other than chorale singing and organ playing wasn’t allowed. However the video also shows the Lutheran church where Bach and many of his fellow court musicians would have attended services. The experts suggest that it could have been here that Bach and friends would have performed re-runs of Bach’s Weimar cantatas. When I watched this, it dawned on me that a scenario I came up with in 2017 should be adjusted a bit.

In my 2017 blog post about Cantata 107, I explained that in July 1724, Bach and Anna Magdalena left Leipzig for a while (anywhere from a few days to almost two weeks) in order to visit their previous employer in Köthen and perform at his castle. Bach had been Capellmeister there, and Anna Magdalena a very highly paid soprano.

In that post, I painted a “movie scenario,” imagining that cantata 107 Was willst du dich betrüben would have been “tested” in the castle in Köthen, but I now realize it would probably have happened in the local Lutheran church instead. And in that case it would not have been very likely that Anna Magdalena would have sung the soprano aria. (Though they might have played the music through at the house of one of the other court musicians, who knows. Hoping that David Yearsley’s book on Anna Magdalena Bach will give me some more clarity on this.)

This all also means that I would like to circle back to my post from last week. I said:

“For 1724, it is very likely that Bach never wrote a cantata that year for this Sunday. Because later in his life, Bach most probably wrote Cantata 9 Es ist das Heil uns kommen her for this moment in the church year, in an effort to fill the gaps within his 1724/1725 chorale cantata cycle.”

That is all still true, but I had obviously forgotten to mention the second reason why there is no cantata from 1724 for Trinity 6, namely that Bach was in Köthen that Sunday. For some of my friends it might come as a relief that I forget some things now and then (you know who you are) but I myself was pretty shocked that I had forgotten this story that I had written about only three years ago.

Wieneke Gorter, July 25, 2020

*Michael Maul, born 1978, has been the Artistic Director of the Bachfest Leipzig since 2018, and is the most famous Bach scholar of his generation.

Alex Potter and Julia Doyle – 6th Sunday after Trinity

17 Friday Jul 2020

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soprano Julia Doyle, photo by Louise O’Dwyer

In my opinion, one of the absolute best background videos on AllofBach is the one in which countertenor Alex Potter explains the different layers of solo cantata 170 Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust from 1726. I remember how happy and impressed I was when I first found this video. So instead of offering you my own discussion, I suggest you watch Alex Potter’s here on YouTube.

Then watch the excellent and moving live performance of this cantata by Alex Potter with the Netherlands Bach Society here on YouTube.

A lot more information, including the German text with English translations, a list of all participating instrumentalists, the staff that made this beautiful document possible, and a short but insightful interview (in text only) with organist Leo van Doeselaar, can be found here on AllofBach.

Bach’s first two cycles in Leipzig didn’t include a cantata for this Sunday (the 6th after Trinity). My speculations for why this might have happened in 1723 are mentioned in this blog post. For 1724, it is very likely that Bach never wrote a cantata that year for this Sunday. Because later in his life, Bach most probably wrote Cantata 9 Es ist das Heil uns kommen her for this moment in the church year, in an effort to fill the gaps within his 1724/1725 chorale cantata cycle.

There’s a wonderful live performance of Cantata 9 on YouTube, by the J.S. Bach Foundation under direction of Rudolf Lutz. Watch it here. My favorite part of this cantata is the glorious duet Herr, du siehst statt guter Werke, beautifully sung by soprano Julia Doyle and alto Alex Potter. I love how well their voices and singing style match for this! This performance also features exquisite music-making by flutist Marc Hantaï, violinist Amandine Beyer, and tenor Charles Daniels.

Wieneke Gorter, July 17, 2020.

The one that’s never discussed here

10 Friday Jul 2020

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Cantata 93 Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten from 1724 is one of my favorite Bach cantatas, but because this one always falls in the summer vacation, I have never actually discussed it. I don’t have time to get into it this year either, but I have some interesting links for you.

In July 2017, I shared my favorite recording (Herreweghe) of this cantata along with some pictures of Greece where I was at the time. You can find that post here. Update: one day after I posted this, the J.S. Bach Foundation Made their full-length video of this cantata available on YouTube, and it’s a very good one. You can find it here: https://youtu.be/in5XDlJnrB8

Bach recycled the most splendid movement from this cantata, the soprano-alto duet, into one of his “Schübler Chorales” for organ. How exactly that works, you can read in my post from February 2018.

And if you understand a little German, watch Rudolf Lutz of the J.S. Bach Foundation explain everything about this Cantata 93 in this workshop on YouTube.

Wieneke Gorter, July 10, 2020, updated July 19, 2020.

Blessings during a crisis

24 Sunday May 2020

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French Alps at La Clusaz, photo by Luc Barrière.

In an effort to share some more personal thoughts with you, this has become quite a long post. If you prefer not to read it and go straight to the cantatas for this Exaudi Sunday, you can find my post about cantatas 44 and 183 here. It is a story with a wealth of information, gorgeous soprano arias, and recommendations for top-notch recordings. But since there’s always more to learn, I wanted to give some attention to Rudolf Lutz’ English spoken lecture about these cantatas. Find the link at the end of this post.

Over the past several months, while we’ve all been dealing with this global health crisis, I have often felt overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by piles of dishes, by potentially life changing decisions, by not knowing what my role is supposed to be in this crisis, but also by musicians and music organizations. While one is telling me to watch this YouTube video–available this week only!, another invites me to join a lecture on Zoom– please submit your questions ahead of time, yet another is showing me that singing while masked actually sounds pretty good (even though their images scare the * out of me), but wait … there’s a live Facebook Event STARTING NOW!

I understand the reasons behind it. An urge to share music with others, so strong they need to answer it or go insane. A fear of being forgotten by their patrons and thus losing even more income. Creative minds that keep exploring new possibilities. I also understand that there are probably millions of people for whom concert-going was their weekly bread, and that they are all eating this up. But it doesn’t calm me down.

My soul has been soothed much more by the images of sour dough rising, vegetable gardens being planned, blooming gardens, and nature. Two Instagram accounts I have especially enjoyed are those of Les Arts Florissants, who have been posting a wealth of pictures of William Christie’s gardens in France, and of Luc Barrière, a concert photographer who left Paris for the Alps before the strict lockdown happened in France. Yes, I know these are privileged people, and everyone can think of their living situations what they want. To me personally, these two accounts have given me examples of people taking care of themselves and slowing down, and that inspires me and calms me.

William Christie’s garden in Thiré, France, on March 28, 2020. Photo from Les Arts Florissants Facebook page.

Of course stress is not caused by the acts of other people, but by your own reaction to these acts, and fortunately most of the live streams can be watched again at a later time. So I have watched some of them at my own pace (while doing those dishes, folding laundry, or cleaning vegetables) and have realized that amidst the overwhelm there are blessings, because every now and then something new and marvelous emerges that would not have happened without this crisis.

For me, the absolute best example of this has been the series of “one man shows” by Rudolf Lutz, the artistic director of the J.S Bach Foundation in Switzerland. Every month, on the day his choir and orchestra would otherwise have given a concert for an audience, recorded live on video, he has live streamed an excellent and very witty lecture about that same cantata, brilliantly combined with organ improvisations on the music in the cantata, and the meaning behind the cantata. Without the crisis, his international online audience of Bach lovers would never have known what a talented improvisor he is. Without the crisis, he would never have held his lectures in English. (Until now his excellent cantata lectures were only accessible to German speakers, with only a handful of them subtitled in English).

Find Rudolf Lutz’ wonderful lecture/improvisation about Cantata 44 and 183 (from May 19) here. Find my blog post about these same cantatas (highlighting completely different aspects of the pieces!) here.

To learn more about Rudolf Lutz, read his bio here. Find his lecture/improvisation about Cantata 106 (from March 20) here, and about Cantata 4 (from April 17) here.

Rudolf Lutz, artistic director of the J.S. Bach Foundation.

Wieneke Gorter, May 24, 2020.

New roses and new videos

15 Friday May 2020

Posted by in After Easter, Cantatas, Leipzig

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Robin Blaze (photo by Dorothea Heise) and Shunske Sato (photo by Marco Borggreve).

Several things have changed since I wrote my post about Cantata 86 in May 2017.

I now have my own Westerland rose growing against the front of my house. The abundance of flowers, the range of color, and the glorious scent are daily blessings this time of year. And while in 2017 I still had to piece together my favorite recording of Cantata 86 from some of Gardiner’s and some of Koopman’s, there now is the fabulous live recording of the Netherlands Bach Society on YouTube, published on September 7, 2018. It even has two of my heros in the alto aria: Shunske Sato on violin and Robin Blaze singing countertenor. Other wonderful soloists on this recording: Marion Strijk, soprano; Daniel Johannsen, tenor; and Stephan MacLeod, bass.

Sato and Blaze present a very clear explanation of how Bach illustrates the “breaking” of the roses in the alto aria in this short video. Worth all the four and a half minutes of your time.

For the text and translations of cantata 86, please visit this page, and for the score, please go here.

Wieneke Gorter, May 15, 2020.

Westerland climbing rose on the front of my house, May 2020. The netting is to protect it from the deer that seek shelter in our backyard and try to forage in the front yard.