Tag Archives: Bach

Starlight shining on a Trinity cantata

15 Sunday Oct 2017

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threekings

The Three Kings, on one of four panels of an altar from Rottweil, Germany.

I would like to dedicate this post to my friends in the Santa Rosa, Napa, and Mendocino areas who are living with enormous stress and challenges due to the fires raging up there. They can all use a silver lining, and the cantata from 1724 for this 18th Sunday after Trinity has an abundance of it.

All this time in the summer and fall of 1724, Bach was writing chorale cantatas, meaning that each cantata would be based on a hymn, if possible one of the ones associated with that particular Sunday in the church year.  For this reason he chose Herr Christ, der einige Gottessohn (Lord Christ, the only son of God) for this cantata with the same title.

Overall, I prefer Ton Koopman’s recording of this cantata 96 Herr Christ, der einige Gottessohn. Listen to that recording here on YouTube, or here on Spotify. Soloists are Deborah York, soprano; Franziska Gottwald, alto; Paul Agnew, tenor; Klaus Mertens, bass; Heiko ter Schegget, sopranino recorder; and Wilbert Hazelzet, transverse flute.

Find the German text with English translation here.

In the Lutheran Church the chorale Herr Christ, der einige Gottessohn, one of the oldest Protestant hymns, was not so much associated with this Sunday, but more with Epiphany/Three Kings, January 6, for its reference to the Morning Star. Bach brings the luster of the Christmas season into this cantata in the most beautiful way. He gives the opening chorus a dusting of starlight by writing a part for flauto piccolo, or sopranino recorder, over the rest of the vocal and instrumental parts. Because in this opening chorus the altos have the chorale melody (doubled by a cornetto, on this recording played by Arno Paduchn), Bach can create an ethereal link between the chorus and the flauto piccolo by way of the soprano part in the chorus. In the fifth line of the text, Er ist die Morgensterne (he is the Morning Star), he modulates to the brilliant key of E Major on the word Morgensterne.

The alto recitative and tenor aria that follow refer to the fact that Jesus is God’s son, not David’s son. This is the only direct reference to the Gospel reading for this Sunday: Jesus giving the Jewish elders a hard time when they claimed that he was only David’s son, not God’s son (Matthew 22: 34-46).  In the tenor aria, fabulously sung by Paul Agnew, Bach features his flute player again.

The soprano recitative moves the focus to Jesus as guiding light, referring to the “he is the Morning Star” text from the chorale. The soprano’s statement that it can be hard to stay on the “right path” is illustrated in the bass aria.

Please listen to Peter Kooy’s interpretation of this aria on the Bach Collegium Japan recording, here on YouTube. We have heard faltering steps in Bach cantatas before (read my post about that here), but this time Bach offers a more theatrical illustration. In the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig a visual and aural effect would have made this even stronger: the violins, at least in the beginning playing when the bass sings “zu rechten” (now to the right), would have stood on the right-hand balcony, the oboes, playing when the bass sings “zu linken” (now to the left) would have stood on the left-hand balcony. Also, in Bach’s rhetoric, right meant good and high, left meant bad and low.

The middle part of this cantata, with the text “Gehe doch, mein Heiland, mit” (My saviour please come with me) always moves me. I hope that the people affected by the California fires will continue to reach out and that the concerned and caring community will continue to offer support in the weeks and months to come, because this will be a long haul.

 

Wieneke Gorter, October 15, 2017.

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Faltering steps à la Bach & Damien Guillon’s art of singing four consonants in a row

09 Saturday Sep 2017

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WieFurchtsam

Excerpt from the manuscript of the alto part for cantata 33 (copied out by Bach’s student Johann Andreas Kuhnau), Leipzig Bach-Archive.

It is now the 13th Sunday after Trinity — time for the story of the Good Samaritan. For a sublime cantata that stays close to that Gospel text, read my earlier post about cantata 77 Bach wrote for this Sunday in 1723.

When Bach receives the libretto for cantata 33 Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ in 1724, it is -except for one line- not related to the Bible story at all. Maybe he already knows this, since he himself was probably responsible for selecting the chorale to serve as the basis for this cantata: a hymn of penitence from 1540, asking Christ to be freed of the pressing burden of sins. The part of the libretto that probably moves him the most* is this:

Wie furchtsam wankten meine Schritte,
Doch Jesus hört auf meine Bitte
Und zeigt mich seinem Vater an.
Mich drückten Sündenlasten nieder,
Doch hilft mir Jesu Trostwort wieder,
Dass er für mich genug getan.

How fearfully were faltering my footsteps,
but Jesus listens to my entreaties
and bears witness for me to his Father.
The burden of my sins weighed down heavily on me,
but Jesus’ word of comfort reassures me
that he has done enough for me.

The first line probably made him think of the soprano aria he wrote a little over a year ago, for the ninth Sunday after Trinity in 1723. (click on the link to listen to it). **

The text of that aria is:

Wie zittern und wanken
Der Sünder Gedanken,
Indem sie sich untereinander verklagen
Und wiederum sich zu entschuldigen wagen.
So wird ein geängstigt Gewissen
Durch eigene Folter zerrissen.

How tremble and waver
the sinners’ thoughts
while they bring accusations against each other
and on the other hand dare to make excuses for themselves.
In this way a troubled conscience
is torn apart through its own torments.

Bach is in general also still working on how to get more drama and text illustration into the music of his cantatas without it coming across as too operatic. So after a delicate opening chorus (Gardiner describes this as “an antique ring” in which the ornate beauty of the orchestral setting almost eclipses the inner gem of the hymn setting) and a powerful bass recitative, he writes this alto aria on the moving text. Click on the link to hear the amazing interpretation by countertenor Damien Guillon and the instrumentalists of Belgian ensemble Il Gardellino. Nobody delivers such a fantastic combination of completely “getting” the text and wonderful, seemingly effortless singing.  And listen to how he pronounces the consonants r-ch-t-s in the word “Furchtsam” without any concession to the vowel sounds.

When the libretto finally comes to the only quote of the Good Samaritan story: “I may love my neighbour as myself” in the fifth movement, Bach takes the opportunity to write a striking “love duet,” completely with parallel thirds and sixths that were used for amorous duets in Venetian operas of the time. If you thought that the famous soprano-alto duet from cantata 78 came out of the blue, here is the  artist’s study for it, one week before 🙂

Listen to the entire cantata, performed by Bach Collegium Japan (with Robin Blaze, countertenor; Gerd Türk, tenor; and Peter Kooij, bass), here on Spotify. Find the text here, and the score here.

Wieneke Gorter, September 8, 2017

 

*of course I don’t know for a fact that this was the part of the libretto that moved Bach most. It is the text that moves me most, and of course that is partly because of Bach’s beautiful setting of it.

**and of course I don’t know this for a fact either, but it is the first thing I wrote down when I listened to this cantata, without having read Gardiner’s notes, which state that this alto aria from cantata 33 “bears a striking kinship in mood, subject-matter, and even melodic outline” to the soprano aria from cantata 105. So I am not alone in noticing this.

 

Something with this Sunday & Robin Blaze’s art of singing a chorale melody

27 Sunday Aug 2017

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balloons-693772_1280

In 1723, Bach wrote an exceptional cantata for this Sunday, the 11th after Trinity. I liked that cantata 179 so much that I gave my blog post last year the title “Bach on a roll” and I’ve been listening to it again this week. In 1724, Bach wrote cantata 113 Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut for this same Sunday. Both these cantatas truly move me. I feel as if Bach was especially humbled by this particular Sunday.

The only recording that does Cantata 113 Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut justice and gives me the good kind of stomach ache is the one by Bach Collegium Japan, because of Peter Kooij’s and Robin Blaze’s terrific singing, beautiful oboe and flute playing, and the fact that Yukari Nonoshita and Robin Blaze make the duet into a lovely piece of music instead of struggling through it the way it is on some other recordings. Listen to this recording by Bach Collegium Japan through a playlist on YouTube I created.

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

That Bach might have might have felt a special touch or inspiration on this 11th Sunday after Trinity makes sense when you look at the Gospel reading for the day. It is the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (or Pharisee and the Tax Collector), a story Jesus tells as an illustration on how to pray: the Pharisee is full of himself, telling God how good he is, while the Publican in his own prayer merely asks for mercy, and tells God how bad he is. This concept of how to be a good Christian before God, to be true, not fake, was very important to Bach.

In cantata 113 the chorale melody turns up much more often than in most of the other 1724/1725 chorale cantatas. It is even present in some of the arias that don’t have the chorale text. For the first time since starting this series of chorale cantatas, Bach doesn’t use the chorale melody as a cantus firmus in the opening chorus. Instead, he writes a simple four-part harmonized setting of the chorale melody. But, then there’s the unusual twist: Bach changes the usual 4/4 beat in which a chorale is normally sung to a 3/4, which allows him to write long suspensions in the vocal lines, thus intensifying the pleading character of the music (and the good stomach ache I get when I listen to it).

In the aria that follows, Bach makes up for the missing cantus firmus from the opening chorus. Any late-comers to that church service on Sunday August 20, 1724 would not have missed what chorale this cantata was based on: the alto sings the text as well as the melody of the chorale’s second stanza in long notes, against strings playing in unison. Singing a chorale melody like this is not easy, and most recordings were unsatisfying to me because of this aria (as well as the duet). But Robin Blaze knows how to do it: sing with a brilliant sound, clearly placing each note, but also sustaining the sound throughout every note, and keeping it moving, while not forgetting word accents. It is a special art, and he masters it. I can listen to that five times in a row and not tire of it.

The bass aria could -as far as the music is concerned- easily have been inserted into the Christmas Oratorio, with the pretty oboe accompaniment. Note the word illustrations on “Zittern” (trembling) and “zerbräche” (would break), expertly sung by Peter Kooij. If this is all not pretty enough, Bach presents his talented flute player again, and gives him a beautiful but unbelievably challenging part, more virtuoso than ever before,  in the tenor aria “Jesus nimmt die Sünder an.” And then there is the duet.

I don’t write this blog for religious reasons, nor do I generally support Bach’s dogmas, but on this Sunday in 2017 I will try to be a good Christian. When I moved to the USA in 1999 I never thought it would come to this, that people in this country would want to move the clock back 50 years or more. On the morning after the 2016 presidential election I promised my kids that we would go into the streets when I would feel that equality, justice, and tolerance would be in danger. So while it stresses me out for several reasons, I strongly feel that we do have to go to the peaceful counter-protest, to help make the crowd as large as possible, and that my children need to be there too. Inspired by pictures of the rally in San Francisco on Saturday, we wrote our messages of love, tolerance, inclusion, and equality on balloons — easier to carry than signs and obviously not symbols of hate.

Wieneke Gorter, August 27, 2017

No nonsense for Trinity 10, 1724

19 Saturday Aug 2017

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Christ Driving the Merchants from the Temple by Jacob Jordaens, circa 1650. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

After the stunningly beautiful music of cantata 94 from last week, it is a bit hard for me to go back to a “regular” chorale cantata: cantata 101: Nimm von uns Herr, du treuer Gott. But then again, maybe the beauty and lightness of last week’s cantata is the key to understanding this week’s …

I was not familiar with this cantata, because for this Sunday in the liturgical year, the 10th after Trinity, my mother would probably have played the more impressive 46 (written in 1723, its opening chorus later used for the Qui Tollis of the Mass in B minor – see my discussion of it here) or 102 (written in 1726, its opening chorus later used for the Kyrie of the Missa Brevis in g minor – see a short discussion at the end of this post).

There is a nice live recording of cantata 101: Nimm von uns Herr, du treuer Gott on YouTube by the Gesualdo Consort, part of a well-constructed program of Bach works based on the Vater Unser melody (Luther’s German version of the Lord’s Prayer). However, this performance doesn’t include trombones doubling the vocal parts in the opening chorus. If you would like to hear that important feature of this cantata, you can listen to Bach Collegium Japan’s recording of the opening chorus here.

Please find the text and translations here, and the score here.

Why does Bach take a starker approach for this Sunday in 1724 than in those other two years? One reason might be that in 1724, he is more strongly bound to his commitment of using a chorale tune as basis for the cantata than he is to the Gospel text for this Sunday (Jesus predicting the destruction of Jerusalem and him driving the merchants from the Temple). And the chorale for this Sunday is terror-inspiring: written during a time of the plague in 1584, on the melody of Luther’s Vater Unser.

If we go back to last week’s cantata, we should realize how frivolous it was of Bach to compose such a lighthearted cantata, featuring the flute, an ultra-secular, and French instrument! And this only to show off a University student, who didn’t even attend the St. Thomas School! It might very well have upset his employers, and afterwards they might have urged him to write something more appropriate next time, something inspiring devotion in the members of the Leipzig congregations, instead of treating them to the stuff he used to write at the court in Köthen. We will never know, but we can imagine.

So, while not directly quoting the Gospel of Jesus banishing the merchants from the Temple, but perhaps inspired by that story nonetheless, Bach goes back to the basics, the core of the Lutheran faith. And we know that whenever the hymn is based on a melody written by Luther himself, Bach shows the utmost respect for that, and often uses references in his music to remind the congregations of the timeless character of the music and of the dogma.

To reinforce the timeless character, he uses the “old” ensemble of cornetto and trombones to double the vocal parts in the opening chorus — the same way he did this for cantata 2 and cantata 25. Bach pushes the doctrine down everyone’s throat even more, or as Gardiner says, he “subjects his listeners to a twin-barrelled doctrinal salvo” when he not only presents the 1584 chorale melody in all but one movement of the cantata, including in the recitatives, but also quotes Luther’s hymn Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot (These are the holy Ten Commandments) in the instrumental opening of the first movement.*

To further rub in the need for penitence, Bach presents strong dissonances on the words “schwere Straf und grosse Not” (grave punishment and great distress). Also, in the terrific Bass aria**, Bach instills horror in his audience when he makes an abrupt move from E minor to C minor on the word “Warum” of the sentence “Warum willst du so zornig sein” (Why wilt thou be so angry). Gardiner calls this a “Mahlerian swerve” and says “Not even Purcell, with his penchant for a calculated spotlit dissonance, was capable of matching this when setting the same words in his anthem “Lord, how long wilt thou be angry.”

In 1726 Bach wrote cantata 102 Herr, deine Augen sehen nach dem Glauben! for this same Sunday, the 10th Sunday after Trinity. It is a terrific composition. Bach was proud of it too, because he later re-used it in the Missa Brevis in F Major (BWV 233) and the Missa Brevis in g minor (BWV 235). Listen to Il Gardellino’s recording of it here on YouTube, with Damien Guillon, countertenor; Marcus Ullman, tenor; and Lieven Termont, bass. Especially the aria Aria Weh der Seele, die den Schaden (perhaps better known today as the soprano aria Qui Tollis from BWV 233) by countertenor Damien Guillon and oboist Marcel Ponseele is to die for.

Wieneke Gorter, August 18, 2017.

* It is not the first time he quotes this hymn in an opening chorus either, see my post about cantata 77 here.

** This bass aria is the best movement of the piece in my opinion, and probably also the reason why the leader of the Gesualdo Consort, Harry van der Kamp, himself the bass soloist, programmed this cantata in the first place.

A better week for cantata 198 than for 86

21 Sunday May 2017

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imgp4873-1-w

 Rosa centifolia ‘Major’, dated as far back as the 16th century in the Netherlands. Courtesy of http://rudolfshistorischer-rosen-park.blogspot.com/ , a website I found when looking for roses that would have existed in Germany in Bach’s time

 

This week I don’t feel a lot of connection with the Bach cantata from 1724 for this Sunday, cantata 86 Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch. When I came home from the funeral of one friend, I learned that another friend had passed away suddenly the day before. Because these were both very strong, kind, beautiful, and inspiring women, and I can’t believe they are gone, I feel much more inclined to listen to cantata 198, Lass, Fürstin, Lass nun einen Strahl, which Bach wrote for the funeral of a well-loved Queen than to a cantata which promotes that “God always knows best.”

But I’ll still write about cantata 86. The only connection I have with it this week are the roses in the text of  the alto aria. It is my favorite movement of this cantata, because of the splendid violin solo. The interpretation of that violin solo I like best of all the recordings I listened to* is the one by Kati Debretzeni on the Gardiner recording. Listen to this recording on YouTube here, and read more about violinist Kati Debretzeni here. Soloists on the Gardiner recording are Katharine Fuge, soprano; Robin Tyson, counter-tenor; Steve Davisilim, tenor; and Stephan Loges, bass.

For better interpretations of the bass and tenor solos, I recommend listening to the Koopman recording on YouTube, with tenor Christoph Prégardien and bass Klaus Mertens.

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

Why the connection with roses? About one week ago, on Friday May 12, I went to drop off a card for a friend who was dying. I learned she was in her last days on Tuesday, but it took me until Friday morning to find the right words, finish writing the card, and to drop it off. When I walked to her door I noticed a hedge of sweet pink roses in the front yard. I felt peace from seeing the roses, and from the knowledge that she liked roses, but I also felt miserable and angry that she would be taken away from all this, from her family, her life, her home. The next day, we heard she passed away during that night.

This past Friday was the day of her funeral. I didn’t know how it would go, how my kids would handle it (my oldest and her oldest are friends), and tried to find some strength for myself, so I would be able to be there for them. I realized that I associate this woman’s kindness and warmth with the pinkish apricot color of my favorite rose in the Berkeley rose garden, Westerland. So I decided to walk through the rose garden to experience the color and scent of this amazing flower, and it helped. This is what she looked like that day: Westerland

What to listen for in cantata 86:

In the opening movement, notice how Bach accentuates the fact that Jesus is speaking important, timeless words by setting these words in the form of an archaic motet. While the motet has multiple voices, the way it was done in the Renaissance, Bach can still make it clear that the words come from Christ’s mouth only, by giving all the other “voice parts” to instruments instead of to other singers.

In the alto aria, hear how the words “brechen” (to pick [roses]) and “stechen” (to prick) are illustrated by short notes and “broken” chords in the voice part, and broken chords in the violin part.

In the soprano aria, hear how low in the soprano range this is set — it could just as well have been sung by an alto. Bach has not given significant solos to a soprano since Easter of this year, 1724, and actually pretty sporadically since the start of the new year. Many scholars suggest that during that spring of 1724, Bach might have lost his boy soprano soloist (due to him leaving the school or due to his voice changing, we don’t know), and documents suggest that he was frustrated with the low quality of the boy sopranos of the St. Thomas School in general. They believe that this is why he started the chorale cantatas (cantatas of which each movement is based on a different verse of one and the same chorale tune) after Pentecost of that year. Keep following this blog and you’ll learn more about that soon 🙂

Wieneke Gorter, May 21, 2017

*I did all this listening last year, when I actually ended up writing about cantata 87, the one Bach wrote for this same Sunday, but then in 1725. Read that post here.

“Cantate” Sunday – or the fourth Sunday after Easter, 1724

13 Saturday May 2017

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Interior of the Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church) in Leipzig.

For “Cantate” Sunday, or the fourth Sunday after Easter in 1724, Bach wrote a short but masterful cantata: BWV 166 Wo gehest du hin? I wrote a long but educational and hopefully also entertaining post about this cantata last year. I explain how Bach illustrates that this is the “singing” Sunday, why there is so much talk of “going away” in this cantata, and why I recommend the recording by Ton Koopman/Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. Read that post here.

Wieneke Gorter, May 12, 2017

Third Sunday after Easter in 1724

07 Sunday May 2017

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For this Jubilate Sunday (the third Sunday after Easter) in 1724, Bach did not write a new cantata the way he had done the previous two weeks*, but repeated one he had written in Weimar in 1714. That cantata: Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen was not any old cantata, but a composition Bach was most probably very proud of: he would later use the opening chorus as template for the Crucifixus in his Mass in B minor. Read all about this cantata and the recordings I recommend in this post I wrote last year.

Wieneke Gorter, May 7, 2017

*see this post about the first Sunday after Easter in 1724 and this one about the second Sunday after Easter in 1724

Second Sunday after Easter 1724

30 Sunday Apr 2017

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christ-the-good-shepherd

Christ the Good Shepherd, by Bartolome Esteban Murillo, c. 1660. Museo del Prado, Madrid.

We keep following Bach in 1724. For the second Sunday after Easter of that year, he composed cantata 104 Du Hirte Israel, höre. Of all the recordings I listened to, I prefer the one of Ton Koopman with his Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, here on YouTube.

Agnew

Paul Agnew

My main reason for choosing this recording is tenor Paul Agnew’s fabulous singing. Type his name in the “search” box on this blog and you’ll find more fan mail from me 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

But also: this recording has the best balance among the voice parts in the choir in the opening chorus, and Klaus Mertens presents a bass aria I can actually listen to without getting irritated. Sorry Philippe Huttenlocher (on the Harnoncourt recording), Stephen Varcoe (Gardiner), and Stephan MacLeod (Bach Collegium Japan).

Find the text of this cantata 104 here, and the score here.

This is a very pretty cantata, entirely based on the “good shepherd” theme for this Sunday, using pastoral motifs in the music, oboes in the orchestra, and displaying an innocent character overall, much more so than the more complicated cantata 85 Bach would write for this same Sunday a year later, which I wrote about last year in this post.

Wieneke Gorter, April 30, 2017.

 

 

First Sunday after Easter 1724

23 Sunday Apr 2017

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The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio, 1601-1602, Sanssouci Palace, Potsdam, Germany

In the past two weeks I ran out of time to work on this blog because of being sick, performing concerts with California Bach Society, and being on a trial jury for the first time since becoming a United States citizen in 2011. So this post for the First Sunday after Easter in 1724 is post-dated, and short, but contains lots of information to learn more about this beautiful cantata.

Previously in 1724: Bach “premiered” his Passion according to St. John on Good Friday, April 7, 1724. Then he ran out of time and energy and, without too much care for detail and text illustration, created cantatas out of existing music for Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday of that year.

This means that the first new composition he wrote after the St. John Passion was this cantata 67 Halt im Gedächtnis Jesum Christ (keep thinking of Jesus Christ), based on the Gospel text of Jesus appearing to his disciples. A famous cantata, already known and admired in the early 19th century, especially because of the dramatic fourth movement for choir and bass, which Bach would later transform into the Gloria of his Missa Brevis in A (BWV 234).

For the background of this cantata I will refer you to the experts, in this 15-minute video by the Netherlands Bach Society, published within their AllofBach series. The video is in Dutch, with English subtitles. It talks about Bach including a flute (not a recorder!) for the first time in a cantata, the meaning behind the text, and the use of the slide-trumpet “corno da tirarsi.”

Listen to and watch their performance here, find the text here, and find the score here. The Netherlands Bach Society, conducted by Jos van Veldhoven, with countertenor Alex Potter, tenor Thomas Hobbs, and bass Peter Kooij.

Wieneke Gorter, April 30, 2017.

Easter in Leipzig 1724

16 Sunday Apr 2017

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The Resurrection by Titan, 1542-1544

This post is really three posts in one, because I’ve realized over the past weeks that for this Easter season, I would like to follow Bach’s cantata performances of 1724 the same way I did that for the Trinity Season of 1723. Thanks for reading to the end!

In the year 1724 in Leipzig, the last Sunday service with music in the churches had been on February 20, when Bach performed the same cantatas (22 and 23) as on that Sunday in 1723, when they were part of his audition in Leipzig.

Bach’s reason for repeating two existing cantatas for that last Sunday before Lent might have been that he was busy writing his Passion according to St. John. However, he might have had extra reasons: cantata 22 features the Vox Christi (voice of Christ). By reminding the Leipzig audiences of the role of Christ in the scripture and his music, they would–in Bach’s mind– hopefully be well prepared for the St. John, in which the figure of Christ is powerfully prominent, much more than in passion compositions of Bach’s predecessors, and even much more than in Bach’s later St. Matthew Passion, even though the singer portraying Christ has more notes to sing in that piece.

The long monologue by Christ occurs almost right away in the opening of cantata 22. Listen to it here on YouTube, performed by the Netherlands Bach Society, with bass Christian Immler. (If you are wondering what that string instrument is on the shoulder of the medieval-looking guy, it is Sigiswald Kuijken playing the violoncello da spalla, and you can read more about it in this post). If you have time, keep watching the YouTube video of this performance, because it has a wonderful interview with Sigiswald Kuijken at the end, in which he explains the meaning of Bach’s writing.

Then, a month later, on Saturday March 25, outside of the regular church year, there was the performance for the Annunciation, as I discussed here. In that cantata, 182, written much earlier in Weimar but not known to the Leipzig audiences until March 25, 1724, there’s also a Vox Christi, singing the words “Siehe, ich komme, im Buch ist von mir geschrieben …” (Lo, I come: in the book it is written of me…). So here we have another “convenient” performance for Bach: no new music to write for the first part of the service*, and a good reminder of the Vox Christi for the listeners.

Despite Bach’s efforts to put his audience in the right frame of mind for the St. John Passion, they were surprised (according to some accounts even shocked) when they heard it on Good Friday, April 7, 1724. I’m pretty sure that Bach himself had not expected this. The passion must have been on his mind already such a long time, and I have no problem picturing this brilliant but nerdy musician who was somewhat incapable of putting himself in the shoes of those with shallower minds. Why I believe the Passion according to St. John must have been on his mind for months already: the tenor aria “Ach mein Sinn” already presents itself in October 1723 in cantata 109 (read more about that here), in November 1723 in cantata 60 (read more about that here), and in January 1724 in cantata 154 (which also has a Vox Christi, read more about it here). Also, the “Herr, Herr” exclamations from the opening chorus first appear as early as July 1723 in cantata 105 (which also has previews of the St. Matthew Passion, read about it here).

Already the opening chorus is of such a dramatic intensity – nobody had every heard anything like it. In the liner notes with his recording, Gardiner says it well: “Even when approaching it from the vantage point of the preceding church cantatas, with their astonishing array of distinctive opening movements, this grand tableau is unprecedented both in scale and Affekt.” What is more, while the instrumental opening suggests lament, the text of the vocal parts turns out to be a praise of Christ as a majestic figure: not a victim, but a victor. Perhaps this vision is what stung the elders and city council members the most, because a year later, in his drastic 1725 revision of the Passion, Bach completely replaced this victorious opening chorus with a lamenting one, later also used as the final movement of the first half of the St. Matthew Passion.

For Easter 1724, on Sunday April 9, Bach performed a cantata from his Weimar years and one from his Mühlhausen years: cantata 31 Der Himmel Lacht, die Erde Jubilieret (discussed here on this blog) and the nowadays well known cantata 4 Christ lag in Todesbanden. Why no new composition for this Easter Sunday? Perhaps he was proud of these cantatas and wanted to show off to the Leipzig congregation and to his colleagues. But most probably he had been extremely busy working on the Passion, and since he was planning no less than four new cantatas for the period between April 10 and 23 of that year, he simply didn’t have time to write anything new.

Watch this live performance by Gesualdo Consort Amsterdam of cantata 4 Christ lag in Todesbanden. It is by no means an impeccable performance, but it is nice to see a live performance of this, and as so often I am moved by Dorothee Mields’ interpretation. I adore how she blends with the cornetto in the alto/soprano duet (starts at 5:27), and her duet with tenor Charles Daniels (a fabulously sensitive and knowledgeable singer, but sometimes overpowered by the orchestra in this performance) is exquisite (starts at 6:10).

Happy Easter!
Wieneke Gorter, April 16, 2017.

* Bach performed two cantatas on that Saturday March 25, 1724, and he did write new music for the second one.