Tag Archives: Bachstiftung

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

25 Saturday Jul 2020

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

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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.

Weekly Cantata is back!

15 Friday Nov 2019

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

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The Servant Sending his Fellow Servant to Prison, from The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant, bound in Thesaurus Sacrarum historiarum Veteris et Novi Testamenti, 1585.
Anonymous, Netherlandish. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (not on view).

I’m back! I’m starting with a small step, but stay tuned … a more considerable post is coming next week.

For this coming Sunday, the 22nd Sunday after Trinity, Bach wrote Cantata 89 in 1723, Cantata 115 in 1724, and Cantata 55 in 1726. Two years ago I wrote about the soprano aria from Cantata 115, not really being able to choose between Susanne Rydén with Bach Collegium Japan or Dorothee Mields with Herreweghe. I also included a link to the soprano aria from Cantata 89. Read that post here.

I still recommend the Herreweghe recording from 2017 for an overall recording of this cantata. However, sometimes it is nice to *see* a performance, and I would like to celebrate an important event in the world of Bach Cantata recordings that happened in the past year: The J.S. Bach Foundation in Switzerland (Bachstiftung) decided to make all their live video recordings of their Bach cantata performances available on YouTube, in full length. Previously, they had only made one movement of each cantata available on YouTube, and one would have to purchase the DVD or buy a live stream subscription in order to see the rest of the cantata.

So in this post I would like to share the Bachstiftung recording of Cantata 115. It was recorded on October 21, 2016, and published to YouTube on October 26, 2018.

Find the German texts with English translations here and the score here.

What is so special about this video recording is that you can see wonderful flutist Marc Hantaï at work in the opening chorus and in the soprano aria. He doesn’t appear on video that often, and they made a good choice to put him in front, so you can see his playing, and of course this way also the microphones pick up his sound better. (to hear more of what I believe is his playing, go to this post).

corno da tirarsi


Other instrumentalists to watch in this video: Olivier Picon on corno da tirarsi, and Balázs Máté on violoncello piccolo. Only three cantatas (46, 162, and 67) show the full name corno da tirarsi written in the manuscript, but there are 27 cantatas from Leipzig requiring a corno in which that part is not playable on a natural horn, so must have been written for this corno da tirarsi as well. Cantata 115 is included in that group. Bach is the only composer who ever mentioned this instrument in writing, and most probably his principal brass player Gottfried Reiche was the only one who ever played it. After Reiche’s death in 1734 Bach did not write for this instrument anymore, and for repeat performances of any cantatas containing a corno da tirarsi part, Bach rewrote it for other instruments. Read more about this in Olivier Picon’s article on the “corno da tirarsi” from 2010. The 27 cantatas are mentioned on page 22 of the article.

To find more of the Bachstiftung videos, search their Archive on their Bachipedia.org website. Most of the videos are “unlisted” on YouTube, so you won’t find them by doing a search within YouTube. Or, for the Dutch readers of this blog, you can use Eduard van Hengel’s new website (another terrific event of this past year!) and click on the links for all YouTube recordings he conveniently provides at the top of each page under the header “Beluister” (for an example, see the one for Cantata 115 here).

Wieneke Gorter, November 15, 2019.

Pentecost 1725

20 Sunday May 2018

Posted by in After Easter, Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Leipzig

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IMG_0015
The Descent of the Holy Ghost by Titian, circa 1545. Altarpiece in Santa Maria della Salute, Venice, Italy.

 

In Bach’s time, Pentecost was a three-day-long feast, as important in the church year as Christmas and Easter. Most of the Pentecost cantatas have trumpets, timpani, and more pull-out-all-the stops instrumentation, as was appropriate for  feast days. They don’t get performed often today, because Pentecost is not such an important feast anymore, and cantatas with Baroque trumpets and timpani are expensive.

In 1725 Bach performed the following cantatas. All these three cantatas are part of the series of nine cantatas on poetry by Christiana Mariana von Ziegler Bach wrote after Easter that year. Click on the links to find recordings on YouTube.

Sunday May 20, Whit Sunday, or First Day of Pentecost: Cantata 74 Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten.

Find the text of Cantata 74 here, and the score here.

Monday May 21, Whit Monday, or Second Day of Pentecost: Cantata 68 Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt, with the famous soprano aria Mein glaübiges Herze – gloriously sung by Peter Jelosits on the Harnoncourt recording.

Tuesday May 22, Whit Tuesday, or Third Day of Pentecost: Cantata 175 Er rufet seinen Schafen mit Namen. (complete cantata by the Bach Foundation).

Find the text of Cantata 175 here, and the score here.

Bach might have remembered from a year before that writing three cantatas in three days was going to be too much, so he reworked the opening of cantata 59 (a soprano-bass duet) from 1724 into an opening chorus for four voice parts and full orchestra in cantata 74 in 1725. He also transformed the bass-aria with violin solo from cantata 59 into a soprano aria with oboe da caccia in cantata 74.

Wieneke Gorter, May 20, 2018.

Mary’s lament

14 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by in Cantatas, Epiphany, Weimar

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marriage_cana_david
The Marriage at Cana, c. 1500, by Gérard David. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Mary pleads and worries, but Jesus says: “Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.”

This week, I watched a very good video by the Swiss Bach Foundation (Bachstiftung) about today’s cantata 155 Mein Gott, wie lang, ach lange? I found it very insightful, helpful, and even entertaining, but was struck by its Calvinist character and was a bit disappointed by the director’s statement that he doesn’t know why this cantata starts with a movement for solo soprano. When reading Gardiner’s and Van Hengel’s discussions of this cantata, I liked their suggestions that the soprano lament refers to  Mary’s role in the Bible story of this Sunday, the Marriage at Cana. It made sense to me. This cantata, from 1715 and repeated in 1724, contains references to the wine as well as to the fact that Jesus says to his mother: “my time has not come yet.”

While the Lutheran church in Bach’s time did not regard Mary as a saint, let alone a mediator between God and the people, she was still an important person in the faith, and thus probably also for Bach. The three Marian feast days*  Luther kept on the calendar were important holidays and Bach wrote cantatas for all of them. Also, Bach wrote this cantata 155 in his Weimar years, when he explored a large number of works by (Catholic) Italian composers.

Listen to Montreal Baroque’s recording of cantata 155 on YouTube through a playlist I created. With Monika Mauch, soprano; Franziska Gottwald, alto; Charles Daniels, tenor; Harry van der Kamp, bass; Anna Marsh, bassoon. If this playlist doesn’t work for you (it might not work outside of the USA), or you prefer to watch a live recording, you can find the live performance by the J.S. Bach Foundation here, with Julia Neumann, soprano; Margot Oitzinger, alto; Julius Pfeifer, tenor; and Raphael Jud, bass.

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

The cantata is not so much a musical play with the soprano taking the role of Mary, but more a reference to her role in the Gospel story and an exploration of that theme: try to trust that everything will be okay in the end, try to not be in control all the time. The first movement has the character of a lament in music and text, you can picture the hand-wringing, the desperation. There is also the steady pedal point in the bass, similar to what Bach will use later in the opening chorus of the St. Matthew Passion.

However it is the second movement, not even sung by the soprano, and with text that is trying to urge her to “let go,” that secretly is the true lament, in the music that is. To hear or see this, the video by the Swiss Bach Foundation is terrific. They explain extremely well (with music examples) how the notes of the solo bassoon part form in fact a lament for three voices. watch from 12:10  By the way: the composition I had to think of when hearing the “lamento bass” was Monteverdi’s  Lamento della Ninfa

If you would like to explore other cantatas for this second Sunday after Epiphany, I invite you to read my post about cantata 3 from 1725 here. It is all about hidden messages in the music of a an extremely beautiful composition with an equally heart wrenching—but completely different—opening movement as this cantata 155.

Wieneke Gorter, January 14, 2017, links updated January 31, 2020.

*The Purification of Mary on February 2, The Annunciaton of Mary on March 25, and the Visitation of Mary on July 2.

Trying to find some beauty in ugliness

13 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by in 1723 Trinity season special series, Cantatas, Leipzig, Trinity

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trumpetsmemling

The least gruesome detail of Hans Memling’s “The Last Judgment”, a triptych painted between 1467 and 1471. National Museum, Gdansk, Poland.

This week I’ve been trying harder than ever in my life to find islands of beauty in a sea of ugliness. I found some: I witnessed communities coming together, had a very uplifting choir rehearsal, attended a concert at my daughter’s music school where the director gave a heart-felt speech, and the choir director had included We Shall Overcome in their part of the program. I have talked with my children about what it means to “stand up” for the millions who will suffer discrimination in the next four years in this country.  I realize I have many different readers of this blog, and that some of you might not share my political opinion. But I would urge you to be there for each other. And whomever you had been meaning to contact, whether it is a friend you should have apologized to four weeks ago, someone you know who is having a hard time, a relative you haven’t called in too long, or your representative in the House or Senate, write that letter, make that phone call. Don’t put it off.

In today’s cantata 90 Es reißet euch ein schrecklich Ende (A terrible end shall sweep you away), written for November 14, 1723, the 25th Sunday after Trinity, it is not easy to find beauty either, at least not the soul-soothing kind, since it is based on the Bible story of The Last Judgement, which is an ugly concept in my opinion. However this story was important in Bach’s time, and it was thus appropriate to let the Trinity season go out with a bang: two weeks in a row of impressive cantatas, including some of the most magnificent (and difficult!) arias for bass and trumpet in all of his work.

While Bach’s audience (the congregations of the St. Thomas and St. Nicholas churches in Leipzig) got plenty of tenor drama in the fall of 1723, it had been a long time (August 1, 1723 to be exact) since they had last heard an operatic aria for bass, with the majestic trumpet as accompanying instrument.

Since this emotional week also calls for some nostalgia, I’m going with the Leonhardt recording of this cantata, because I grew up listening to Max van Egmond sing these bass arias. The trumpet player on that recording however barely makes it, so if you would like to listen to a better player in that particular aria, and also see a close-up of the instrument, watch this video (of the bass aria only) by the Bach Foundation, with Patrick Henrichs on trumpet.

Find the text here, and the score here.

Wieneke Gorter, November 13, 2016, Links updated November 24, 2019.