Tag Archives: Annette Markert

New Year’s Day 1725

31 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by in Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Christmas, Leipzig

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Happy New Year! It’s still 2017 in California as I am writing this, always a bit strange, this time difference, but it is so great to know that I have readers all over the world, from New Zealand to India to France to Brazil to Canada.

Today’s Cantata 41 Jesu, nun sei gepreiset still has a bit of Christmas in it, especially in the soprano aria with the pastoral accompaniment of the three oboes, and with an orchestration worthy of a feast day: timpani, 3 trumpets, 3 oboes,  violoncello piccolo, plus the regular strings and organ. But that’s about the only relation this cantata has with the Christmas story.

The best recording of this cantata available on YouTube is the one by Koopman. You can listen to it here. Soloists are Sibylla Rubens, soprano; Annette Markert, alto; Christoph Prégardien, tenor; and Klaus Mertens, bass.

Find the German texts with English translations of Cantata 41 here, and the score here.

Normally, on New Year’s Day, it would be time to talk about the name-giving of Jesus (the day of the circumcision), see my New Year’s Day post from last year.  While Bach clearly indicates on the first page of this cantata’s manuscript that it is intended “For the “Feast of the Circumcision,” nothing in the text or music of this cantata refers to this.

This year, Bach and his librettist have chosen to focus on the old year / new year theme instead, the same way they did that yesterday for the more intimate Cantata 122. Is this perhaps another indication that this particular New Year’s, 1725, the time on the calendar was more important than the time in the Lutheran church year?

While yesterday Bach was inspired by the early medieval tradition of conflating Christmas with New Year, today it is all about the “Alpha and Omega,” the beginning and the end, in Bach’s time seen as a symbol for God’s extended care of the people. Eduard van Hengel gives the following examples for this:

  • The closing chorale has as much musical “fanfare” in it as the opening chorus, which is rather unusual for a Bach cantata.
  • The main key of the cantata is C Major, which is at the beginning as well as at the end of the sequence of key signatures.
  • In the alto recitative, which is not in they key of C at all, Bach does move to that key just for the text “A und O,” so that A sounds on a high C and O on a low C.
  • The violoncello piccolo part in the tenor aria requires the full range of the instrument, symbolizing the full extent of God’s care.

Also listen for the brilliant illustrations of Satan in the music of the bass aria: Bach uses “forbidden” intervals, also called “diabolus in musica” (the devil in the music), and writes a very unusual “insert” for the choir in the bass aria on the text “Den Satan unter unsre Füsse treten.”

Wieneke Gorter, December 31, 2017

 

 

Bass arias with trumpet

22 Sunday Oct 2017

Posted by in Cantatas, Leipzig, Trinity

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bwv5_manuscript_tromba

Excerpt from the trumpet part of Cantata 5 Wo soll ich fliehen hin? copied out by J.A. Kuhnau, Bach’s principal copyist, a nephew of Bach’s predecessor at Leipzig. Bach-Archiv Leipzig/Bach Digital.

The cantata from 1724 for this Sunday, the 19th after Trinity, is terrific, with a beautiful tenor aria with viola (or violin on some recordings) and rousing bass aria with trumpet. I prefer Bach Collegium Japan’s recording of this Cantata 5, Wo soll ich fliehen hin? because of Peter Kooij’s singing in the bass aria, Azumi Takada’s viola playing in the tenor aria, and the many colors of Susanne Rydén’s voice. Listen to it on YouTube via a playlist I created. Soloists are Susanne Rydén, soprano; Pascal Bertin, countertenor; Gerd Türk, tenor; Peter Kooij, bass.

Koopman’s recording of this cantata is good too, with perhaps a nicer tempo in the opening chorus, fabulous trumpet playing by Stephen Keavy in the bass aria, and good singing by Christoph Prégardien in the tenor aria. Listen to Koopman’s recording here. Soloists on this recording are Sybilla Rubens, soprano; Annette Markert, alto; Christoph Prégardien, tenor; Klaus Mertens, bass.

Find the German text with English translation here, and the score here.

Bach’s principal trumpet player, Gottfried Reiche, was an excellent musician, probably famous in the entire region, and apparently the only one who could play the tromba da tirarsi (slide trumpet) or corno da tirarsi (read more about that instrument in this post). And since Anna Magdalena’s father and all her three brothers-in-law were trumpet players at the regional courts, Bach knew their world well, and was most likely very well connected to many excellent players and their students. Around the feast of St. Michael’s (September 29), thousands of visitors from all over Europe would come to the Fair in Leipzig, and stay for a bit. Did Bach want to show Reiche off to all these visitors on September 29 (for Cantata 130, see below) and again this time on October 15, 1724, or were the trumpeter and/or bass singer themselves guests from out of town?

Bach paired the trumpet most often with the bass voice when writing arias. The most impressive bass arias with trumpet the Leipzig congregations would have heard between June 1723 (when Bach started working in Leipzig) and October 1724 are:

July 2, 1723: “Ich will von Jesu Wundern singen” from Cantata 147 (J.S. Bach Foundation recording from 2015 with Wolff-Matthias Friedrich, bass; Patrick Henrichs, trumpet)

August 1, 1723: “Dein Wetter zog sich auf von weiten” from Cantata 46 (Herreweghe recording from 2012 with Peter Kooij, bass; Alain De Rudder, Tromba da tirarsi).

November 14, 1723: “So löschet im Eifer der rächende Richter” from Cantata 90 (Bach Stiftung video with Klaus Häger, bass; Patrick Henrichs, trumpet)

May 28, 1724: “Heiligste Dreieinigkeit” from Cantata 172 (Leonhardt recording from 1985 with Max van Egmond, bass; Friedemann Immer, Klaus Osterloh, and Susan Willems, trumpets)

June 11, 1724: “Wacht auf, wacht auf, verloren Schafen” from Cantata 20 (Koopman recording from 1998 with Klaus Mertens, bass; Stephen Keavy, Tromba da tirarsi)

September 29, 1724, feast of St. Michael’s: “Der alte Drache brennt vor Neid” from Cantata 130 (Koopman recording from 2007 with Klaus Mertens, bass; Stephen Keavy, Jonathan Impett, and Michael Harrison, trumpets)

Wieneke Gorter, October 22, 2017, updated October 15, 2020.

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