Tag Archives: Jan Börner

Getting all Dressed Up in the Opening Chorus.

25 Sunday Oct 2020

Posted by in Bach's life, Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Köthen, Leipzig, Trinity

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • Friederike Henriette, Princess of Anhalt-Köthen
  • Christiane Eberhardine, Electress of Saxony
  • Sophia Dorothea,
    Queen of Prussia

My absolute favorite recording of Cantata 180 Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele (Adorn yourself, beloved soul, from October 22, 1724) is the video registration by the J.S. Bach Foundation from 2009. I love how the entire ensemble truly brings luster into the opening chorus and the soprano aria, and how the instrumentalists illustrate the “knocking” in the tenor aria. Also: Rudolf Lutz’s lecture about this cantata is in my top five of all his lectures I’ve watched so far.

When I first wrote about this cantata, in 2017, only the soprano aria from this video registration was available on YouTube, and Lutz’s lecture didn’t have English subtitles yet. However, this has all changed, and the entire cantata is now available here on YouTube, and Lutz’s lecture, now with English subtitles, can be found here. Soloists in the performance: Maria Christina Kiehr, soprano; Jan Börner, counter-tenor; Julius Pfeifer, tenor; and Fabrice Hayoz, bass. 

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

When I listened to Lutz’s lecture again this week, I noticed some things I had missed when listening to it in 2017. For example, around 2 minutes into the lecture, when talking about the opening chorus, Lutz says:

“I like to compare it to a flowing wedding garment of the noblest kind.”

The title of the cantata is “Schmücke dich” (Adorn yourself) and the 20th Sunday after Trinity was a Communion Sunday in Leipzig. As I mentioned in my post from 2017, it was normal in Bach’s time to compare the Communion between Jesus and the believer, or Jesus and the soul, to the marriage between groom and bride. So it makes sense to use this image of a bride dressing up for her wedding. In addition, the reading for this Sunday mentions wedding guests being sent away because they are not dressed for the occasion. So on this 20th Sunday after Trinity, we can pay a bit more attention to clothing.

Lutz being Lutz, a talented improvisor, and often one to throw in some local folklore to make his Swiss audience laugh, makes a joke about that “wedding garment of the noblest kind,” and adds: “Perhaps by Akris, or so.” I had to Google that one, and it turns out that Akris is a Swiss fashion house that still has its headquarters in St. Gallen (the same town where the J.S. Bach Foundation resides), and has been owned by the same family continuously. There’s a nice New York Times article about its current creative director Albert Kriemler here.

I started thinking: if Bach also paid more attention to clothing for this Sunday, what would he have had in mind on the words “Schmücke dich”?

We know that the Rhine wine was flowing at Bach’s own wedding to Anna Magdalena in 1721, but for the rest it would probably have been a simple affair, since it was held at home. There are no paintings of the weddings of his employers, nor of the weddings that would have taken place in Leipzig at the time. However there are paintings of noble dresses Bach might have seen on official occasions, worn by the Princess his employer in Köthen married a little later in December 1721*, and by the consorts of dignitaries Bach would have visited in Dresden and Berlin. See pictures at the top of this post. This would then also be the style in which the noblewomen of Leipzig would have dressed up to go attend church, especially on an important Sunday such as this one.

Read more about all the luster in this cantata, and about an impatient groom/Jesus in my blog post from 2017. I’m apparently always late in posting for this Sunday, whether there are choir performances going on in my life or not.

Wieneke Gorter, October 25, 2020.

*In a rare letter to a friend, Bach mentioned Friederike Henriette and the absence of her interest in music as one of his reasons for leaving Köthen in 1723. However it was probably for financial demands by the Prussian military that the Prince of Anhalt-Köthen had less and less funds to spend on music. Henriette died in April of 1723, 14 months after her marrying Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen. Bach moved to Leipzig in May 1723.

A new photo and a new video (BWV 48 and 5 for Trinity 19)

17 Saturday Oct 2020

Posted by in 1723 Trinity season special series, Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Leipzig, Trinity

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Fresco’s in the Brancacci Chapel of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy, by Masolino, 1424-25. One of the miracles pictured is The Healing of the Cripple, which was the Gospel story for the 19th Sunday after Trinity. Photo by the author.

At the end of a two-week trip to Italy in the summer of 2018 (my family’s first visit to that country), we would have only one afternoon and night in Florence. After booking our hotel in a neighborhood a good friend had recommended, I saw on Google maps that the hotel was around the corner from a church called Santa Maria del Carmine.

The name rang a bell, but I didn’t immediately realize why. Then I started searching my blog, and yes: there it was, the fresco of The Healing of the Cripple, from the Brancacci Chapel in that church, in my blog post from 2016 about Cantata 48. After seeing a lot of art in other cities in Italy and with a big train trip ahead of us, we decided to have this be the only art we would go see in Florence, and save the rest for another trip. It was a good decision, because this way I could really let it sink in that I was seeing these frescos in real life, and this way we had some time left to eat ice cream, rest, see the sun set over the city, and enjoy a good meal.

In my blog post from 2016, I recommended Herreweghe’s recording of Cantata 48 Ich elender Mensch. (from 1723), and I still stand by that choice. Find all the links to the recording, a comparison with the St. Matthew Passion, and my explanation of the silver lining in the opening chorus here.

One year later, in 2017, I wrote about Cantata 5, Wo soll ich fliehen hin? which Bach wrote for this same 19th Sunday after Trinity, in 1724. Since then, I have a new favorite recording of this cantata: the excellent 2018 performance by the J.S. Bach Foundation that was released to YouTube in April 2019. You can find that video here. Soloists are: Soprano: Mirjam Berli; Alto: Jan Börner; Tenor: Raphael Höhn; Bass: Manuel Walser; Violin: Eva Borhi; Tromba da tirarsi: Patrick Henrichs.

Find the German text with English translation of Cantata 5 here, and the score here.

For a list of the bass arias with trumpet the Leipzig congregations would have heard between June 1723 (when Bach started working in Leipzig) and October 1724 (when he wrote Cantata 5), including links for listening, read my blog post from 2017 here.

Wieneke Gorter, October 17, 2020

Follow this blog on Facebook or Instagram

Celebrating gratitude: the third time Bach writes for Trinity 14

12 Saturday Sep 2020

Posted by in 1723 Trinity season special series, Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Leipzig, Trinity

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

Jesus Heals Ten Lepers, from the Codex Aureus of Echternach, c. 1035-1040

While my family is not in any direct danger of the fires here in California, and we are lucky in many ways, it has been hard for me to avoid going into serious flight mode this week. What has kept me sane are yoga classes on Zoom, but also a daily gratitude practice, where I write down specific examples of things that went well or that I enjoyed, and count my blessings.

I was comforted to discover this week that Bach also focused on gratitude and joy in the third cantata he wrote for this 14th Sunday after Trinity. The Bible story for this Sunday is the miracle of Jesus healing ten lepers, from Luke 17: 11-19. While Bach’s first two cantatas for this Sunday talk about salvation from sickness, the third one, Cantata 17 Wer Dank opfert, der preiset mich (He who gives thanks, he praises me), from 1726, focuses on the second part of the story (as well as the second part in the painting above): the one man who comes forward to thank Jesus for healing him.

Of all the recordings I listened to, I prefer the live video registration by the J.S. Bach Foundation, released in March 2020. Watch that recording here on YouTube or, if you prefer to listen on Spotify, you can find my playlist here. Soloists are: Noëmi Sohn-Nad, soprano; Jan Börner; alto; Sören Richter; tenor; and Daniel Pérez, bass. I enjoyed listening to all of them.

Find the German texts with English translations of this cantata here, and the score here.

There are two unique aspects to this cantata, especially when you compare it to other cantatas for “regular” Sundays. First, there is no hardship to overcome, no sin to be absolved in this cantata. It is all one big song of praise for God’s benevolence. Quite unusual, but a nice change. Second, Bach writes an “Evangelist” part for the tenor at the start of part II, directly quoting the Bible text:

Einer aber unter ihnen, da er sahe, dass er gesund worden war,
But one of them, when he saw that he was healed,
kehrete um und preisete Gott mit lauter Stimme
turned back and praised God with a loud voice
und fiel auf sein Angesicht zu seinen Füßen
and fell on his face at his feet
und dankte ihm, und das war ein Samariter.
and thanked him, and this man was a Samaritan.

There are only a handful of other cantatas in which this happens, but most of those are very meaningful (Cantata 22 and 42 come to mind). So I don’t think Bach is experimenting. He probably again wants to educate his fellow believers, and perhaps make them see that that part of the story is what the whole cantata is about.

I have to leave it at that, because the other two cantatas for this Sunday are not to be missed either and I don’t want this post to become too long.

Cantata 25 Es ist nichts Gesundes an meinem Leibe (Nothing healthy is to be found in my body), from 1723, starts out with an incredible opening chorus with trombones playing a chorale that begs for salvation. That salvation then appears towards the end of the cantata, in the form of a jubilant soprano aria. Read my blog post from 2016, not only to find links to Herreweghe’s fabulous recording of this cantata (with Hana Blažíková singing the soprano aria), but also to learn why Bach must have felt like a kid in a candy store that particular Sunday.

In 1724 Bach wrote Cantata 78 Jesu, der du meine Seele (Jesus, you [who saved] my soul). After a completely different, but equally beautiful and poignant opening chorus, joy presents itself much earlier, in the music of the second movement: the cute soprano-alto duet that is nowadays probably Bach’s most beloved duet. In my blog post from 2017 I recommend a Rifkin and a Herreweghe recording and I still stand by those choices today. In that post, I praised the opening chorus and the duet, but I completely forgot to discuss an often overlooked movement from this cantata: the tenor aria. I believe that Bach wrote some of his best trio sonatas in the form of tenor arias. About two years ago I started dreaming of a podcast about this underrated aspect of Bach’s compositions, and when I finally have the time and the guts to create it, this aria will definitely be in it.

Wieneke Gorter, September 12, 2020.

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

05 Saturday Sep 2020

Posted by in 1723 Trinity season special series, Bach's life, Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Leipzig, Trinity

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

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.

The one that’s never discussed here

10 Friday Jul 2020

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

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.

Bach looking back (Belated 2nd Sunday after Epiphany)

01 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Cantatas, Epiphany, Leipzig

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wedding at Cana by Duccio di Buoninsegna, tempera on wood, between 1308 and 1311. Museo dell’ Opera dell’ Duomo, Siena, Italy. The “scene” from this story that Bach and his librettists prefer to focus on in all his cantatas for this Sunday, is also illustrated here: Jesus telling his anxious mother “Mine hour is not yet come.”

Two weeks ago I ran out of time writing this post, but I had discovered so much about Cantata 13 Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen (1726), that I would still very much like to share that cantata here. So I hope you don’t mind going back in time a little bit, to the Second Sunday after Epiphany, which fell on January 19 this year (2020), and on January 20 in 1726.

Before I prepare a new post, I always like to revisit previous posts I wrote about this same Sunday, and listen to those cantatas again. And it always thrills me when during this process I discover that Bach must have done this too: going back, either in his memory or in the physical stack of manuscripts, to the music he previously wrote for this same Sunday. Sometimes I only get a feeling that he did this, but other times, there’s an obvious quote either in the text or in the music.

This time I was excited to find Bach quoting music from Cantata 155 Mein Gott, wie lang, ach lange? in Cantata 13 Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen. Bach had written Cantata 155 already in Weimar in 1716, but performed it again in Leipzig in 1724, also on the Second Sunday after Epiphany.

I invite you to listen to/watch the wonderful alto-tenor duet with bassoon from Cantata 155 Mein Gott, wie lang, ach lange? here, in a performance by the J.S. Bach Foundation, with alto Margot Oitzinger and tenor Julius Pfeifer. Note this theme in the voices:

After that duet is over, I would suggest turning off that recording for now. *

Now listen to/watch the entire recording of Cantata 13 Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen, also by the J.S. Bach Foundation here, with soprano Susanne Seitter, alto Jan Börner, tenor Jakob Pilgram, and bass Wolf Matthias Friedrich.

Find the German text with English translations here, and the score here. Please note that the English translation of the bass aria’s first line is incorrect: the translation of the German word “Sorgen” should be “worries” or “worrying”, not “care.” The correct translation is something like this:

Groaning and pitiful weeping
are no help to the sickness of worrying

Pay attention to the recorder parts in the opening movement. The music has a slower tempo, and a more drawn out rhythm, but the theme is the same as in that duet from Cantata 155 you just heard:

There is more in this opening chorus of Cantata 13 that gives us a peek into Bach’s referencing process. Bach often uses recorders to introduce sorrow. Early in his career he had done this in the opening movements of Cantata 106 Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (written in 1707) and Cantata 161 Komm, du süße Todesstunde (1716). Even during his first year in Leipzig, in 1723, he used this “tool” in the opening chorus of Cantata 46 Schauet doch und sehet, ob irgendein Schmerz sei (which would later form the basis for the Qui tollis from the Mass in B minor). And while from the mid 1720s most Baroque composers, including Bach himself, favored the more fashionable French transverse flutes over recorders, Bach still uses recorders to illustrate impending sorrow or death’s slumber in his Easter Oratorio (1725) and his St. Matthew Passion (1727). Click on the links to hear/watch recordings of all these examples on YouTube. Names of performers in all these are listed at the very end of this post.**

If, after listening to / watching Cantata 13 in its entirety, you are wondering why Bach’s illustration of a miracle (Jesus turning water into wine at the Wedding at Cana) is so incredibly sorrowful, read my blog post about Cantata 3 here.

Wieneke Gorter, January 31, 2020, updated January 16, 2021.

* read my blog post about Cantata 155, which now includes a link to the J.S. Bach Foundation recording, here.

** Performers in the YouTube recordings of cantata/oratorio movements with recorders are:

Credits for YouTube recordings linked above:

Opening movement of Cantata 106: Netherlands Bach Society; Jos van Veldhoven, conductor; Heiko ter Schegget and Benny Aghassi, recorders; Dorothee Mields, soprano; Alex Potter, alto; Charles Daniels, tenor; Tobias Berndt, bass.

Opening movement of Cantata 161: Collegium Vocale Gent; Philippe Herreweghe, conductor; Bart Coen and Koen Dieltiens, recorders; Matthew White, alto; Herman Stinders, organ.

Opening movement of Cantata 46: Collegium Vocale Gent; Philippe Herreweghe, conductor. Live recording from the Festival of Saintes, France, July 15, 2013. Recorder players not specified.

Tenor aria “Sanfte soll mein Todeskummer” from Easter Oratorio, BWV 249: Collegium Vocale Gent; Philippe Herreweghe, conductor. Mark Padmore, tenor.

Tenor recitative with choir “O Schmerz, hier zittert das gequälte Herz” from St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244: Collegium Vocale Gent; Philippe Herreweghe, conductor. Colin Balzer, tenor.

Wedding music for the 20th Sunday after Trinity, with a gorgeous soprano aria

30 Monday Oct 2017

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Bachsaal_Schloss_Koethen

The mirror-hall, now called “Bach hall” in Köthen, where Bach worked from 1717 to 1723.

A concert weekend, successful, but fueled almost exclusively by adrenaline; the overwhelming fatigue thus following; my favorite breakfast cook/violin practice coach/morning chauffeur/bedtime enforcer away on a business trip all week; much needed family hike on Saturday; me not being superwoman: It sometimes leads to a late blog post 🙂 Thank you for understanding.

The 1724 cantata for yesterday, Cantata 180 Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele (Adorn yourself, beloved soul) is full of luster, with an opening chorus, a tenor/flute aria and a soprano/orchestra aria that make me think of the orchestral suites Bach wrote at the court of Köthen between 1717 and 1723. With all this joy already from the beginning, it sounds like a wedding cantata.

The recording I appreciate most is the one by the Swiss J.S. Bach Foundation from 2009, because I feel they bring the most light into the opening chorus and the soprano aria, illustrate the “knocking” the best in the tenor aria, and the singers do a great job bringing out the text. Soloists: Maria Christina Kiehr, soprano; Jan Börner, counter-tenor; Julius Pfeifer, tenor; and Fabrice Hayoz, bass.  Update from 2020: When I first wrote about this cantata, in 2017, only the soprano aria from this recording was available on YouTube, but in 2018 they made it available in full length. You can find it here.

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

Why all this luster in this cantata? In Bach’s time, the Gospel reading for this Sunday, the parable of the Wedding Banquet (Matthew 22: 1-14) was seen in relation to the union of the faithful with Christ, both during communion as well as during the heavenly banquet in the afterlife. If you then realize that that union between the soul of the faithful and Christ was in that time often compared to the marriage between bride and groom, it was not unusual to present something that sounds like wedding music on this communion Sunday.  Expressing the love-like relationship of Jesus and the soul was not a foreign concept for Bach. He did it beautifully in the duet in Cantata 21 from Weimar (read my post about that cantata here) and later also in Cantata 140 Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme.**

In addition to this important link to the Bible texts, I think Bach might have an ulterior motive to bring so much splendor in a cantata for a Communion Sunday. On those Sundays, the congregations in the Leipzig churches would have been larger, and more prominent (read: wish-to-be-seen) families would have been present. Having followed Bach’s cantata compositions in the order he wrote them in Leipzig for almost two years now, I am seeing this pattern around large events in Leipzig: important audience = time to show off his star players and singers and his composition skills.

In his lecture (2020 update: now with English subtitles!), Rudolf Lutz, the director of the J.S. Bach Foundation, points out all the musical elements that make the opening chorus so utterly joyful and full of splendor. If you start watching at 19 minutes, you can see/hear how he shows that the bass notes are already signs of happiness, similar to the way how Bach expresses that in his Magnificat from 1723 and his Cantata 140. He then goes on to explain how the recorders build a “dome” over all of it, and the unisono violins and viola express the utter pleasure of lovers, or as Lutz says: “I love you, I love you, I say it to you again! Oh! Ah!”

In the tenor aria Christ is knocking on the door of the believer. This is a reference to the Revelations chapter from the Bible. When Bach received the libretto for this cantata, he must have thought back to an earlier cantata in which this Bible text was quoted literally: Cantata 61 Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland from Weimar. In that cantata, the “Vox Christi” bass sings:

Siehe, ich stehe vor der Tür und klopfe an.
So jemand meine Stimme hören wird und die Tür auftun,
zu dem werde ich eingehen
und das Abendmahl mit ihm halten und er mit mir.

  

 

See, I stand before the door and knock.
If anyone will hear my voice
and open the door
I shall go in
and have supper with him and he with me.

This recitative/arioso is accompanied by staccato continuo, illustrating the knocking. Bach uses this feature again in the continuo for this tenor aria from Cantata 180. Except this Christ is more impatient than the one from Cantata 61. For the rest it is pure blissful music, again putting Bach’s fabulous flute player in the spotlight. The theme of the flute part is likely based on the first three notes of the chorale melody. Julius Pfeifer does a great job singing this on the J.S. Bach Foundation recording.*** 

Note Christophe Coin on violoncello piccolo in the soprano chorale.  My most favorite part of this recording by the J.S. Bach Foundation is the soprano aria. Sublime interpretation by all, with levity, freedom, and abandon in the orchestra and superb singing by Maria Christina Kiehr. If you wonder where you know her voice from: she appears on many Savall recordings alongside Montserrat Figueras.

Wieneke Gorter, October 30, 2017, updated October 25, 2020.

** Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme was really also a Trinity, almost Advent, cantata, but is nowadays better known as “The Wedding Cantata” (incorrectly suggesting that Bach wrote only one Wedding cantata) because of that subject matter.

***Another fabulous recording of this aria is the one by Cristoph Prégardien on the Christophe Coin CD. Listen to it here.

Starlight shining on a Trinity cantata

15 Sunday Oct 2017

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

threekings
The Adoration of the Kings, circa 1440. From a series of four boards from the former High Altar of the Heilig-Kreuz-Münsters in Rottweil, Germany.

In the summer and fall of 1724, Bach wrote an entire series of chorale cantatas, meaning that each cantata was based on a hymn. If at all possible, it was to be a hymn associated with that particular Sunday in the church year.  For this 18th Sunday after Trinity, he chose Herr Christ, der einige Gottessohn (Lord Christ, the only son of God). Keep reading to learn why.

When I first wrote about this Cantata 96 Herr Christ, der einige Gottessohn, in 2017, I recommended Ton Koopman’s recording. Listen to that recording here on Amazon, or here on Spotify. (It is not available on YouTube). Soloists are: Deborah York, soprano; Franziska Gottwald, alto; Paul Agnew, tenor; Klaus Mertens, bass; Heiko ter Schegget, sopranino recorder; and Wilbert Hazelzet, transverse flute.

However, since then a wonderful live video registration by the J.S. Bach Foundation has come out: you can find that here on YouTube. This is a terrific recording as well, with the added bonus that you can see the sopranino recorder and all the other instruments. Soloists in this performance are: Noëmi Sohn, soprano; Jan Börner, alto; Julius Pfeifer, tenor; Wolf-Matthias Friedrich, bass; and Maurice Steger, sopranino recorder.

Find the German text with English translation here and the score 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 18th Sunday after Trinity, 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. Since this time it is the altos that have the chorale melody in the opening chorus, 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.”

But why did Bach select this chorale for a Sunday in the Trinity season? It becomes a bit more clear in the alto recitative and tenor aria. They 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 after they had claimed that he was only David’s son, not God’s son (Matthew 22: 34-46).  In the tenor aria Bach features his star flute player again.

In the soprano recitative, the focus changes 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.

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, 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, especially when Peter Kooij sings it (listen to that here on Spotify, with Bach Collegium Japan).

Wieneke Gorter, October 15, 2017, updated October 8, 2020.

Follow this blog on Facebook or Instagram

*Since his arrival in Leipzig, Bach had used recorders in cantatas quite often (see this image by Nik Tarasov), but this is the very first time he writes for sopranino recorder, or “flauto piccolo.” The second time was on March 25, 1725, in Cantata 1 Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, and the third time on the third Sunday after Easter in 1725, in Cantata 103 Ihr werdet weinen und heulen.