Tag Archives: Leipzig

Passion stress for Bach plus two more cantata movements disguised as organ works

05 Monday Mar 2018

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

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Bach_house_Leipzig

On the left the rebuilt Thomas School Anno 1732. The apartment of the Bach family was on the left of the building. On the right is “a part of the Cather(ine) Street”. Zimmermann’s Café which hosted Bach’s Collegium Musicum was located in the center building labeled “2”.

Around this time in 1725, Bach was still on a break from writing cantatas (they were not to be performed in Leipzig during the 40 days before Easter), but was by no means resting. On the contrary, he was likely rather stressed out about his passion music for Good Friday 1725.

We know that on Good Friday 1725, Bach performed a revised version of his St. John Passion from 1724. We don’t know why he revised it, and some scholars such as John Elliot Gardiner even suggest that Bach had been planning to perform a St. Matthew Passion instead.*

If we could only travel back in time and find out what happened. If it was indeed Bach’s plan to perform a completely new composition, why did he not perform it until 1727? Did he simply run out of time, or did the Leipzig city council not approve of the piece? And why exactly did he revise the St. John Passion? Did he want to change it himself, or had the presentation of Jesus as victor** in the original 1724 version irked the city council?

Now for some music, related to my previous blog post, but completely unrelated to the passion stress story above:

Following up on my post from two weeks ago, there are two more cantata movements that show up in Bach’s “Schübler” organ chorales:

The fifth movement of Cantata 10 Meine Seele erhebt den Herren (live performance in the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig by alto Bogna Bartosz, tenor Jörg Dürmüller, and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra under the direction of Ton Koopman) disguised as organ chorale BWV 648 (Ton Koopman on the historic Müller organ (1724) of the Grote Kerk in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands) with the same title. Click on the links to watch and listen on YouTube.

Also: the second movement of Cantata 137 Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren from 1725 (violinist Margaret Faultless with all the altos of the Amsterdam Baroque Choir under the direction of Ton Koopman), transformed into organ chorale BWV 650 Kommst du nun, Jesu, vom Himmel herunter (Bine Katrine Bryndorf on the historic organ (1724) of the Garnisons Kirke in Copenhagen, Denmark). Click on the links to listen on YouTube.

Wieneke Gorter, March 5, 2018

*In his book Music in the Castle of Heaven, John Elliot Gardiner makes a strong case that Bach might have initially planned to have the St. Matthew Passion ready for Good Friday 1725. Read this blog post to find out why that is not an unlikely scenario at all.

**Read more about this in this blog post

A somewhat medieval “Rutsch” into 1725

30 Saturday Dec 2017

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

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mystic_nativity2c_sandro_botticelli
Mystic Nativity by Botticelli, circa 1500. National Gallery, London.

Since I was a very small child, the word “Jubeljahr” (Year of Jubilee) has stood out to me when listening to Cantata 122 Das neugeborne Kindelein. I already mentioned this a bit in my post from last year. So on the second to last day of 2017, I did some research into this concept of Jubeljahr, and realized that perhaps Bach might have liked the word too. Keep reading to find out why.

My favorite recording of this cantata is the one by Herreweghe from 1995 with soprano Vasiljka Jezovsek, alto Sarah Connolly, tenor Mark Padmore, and bass Peter Kooij. Find it here on YouTube. Find the text of cantata 122 here, and the score here.

In 1724, there was a Sunday in between Christmas and New Year’s Day, (a first for Bach in Leipzig*) and it fell exactly on New Year’s Eve. The upcoming New Year was not just any year. For the Catholic church 1725 was going to be a Holy Year, Year of Jubilee, or “Jubeljahr” as they called it in German.** While Bach was Lutheran, chances are high that he was aware of the Catholic tradition and thus of the extra importance of this last Sunday of the calendar year. The nearby court of Dresden was Catholic, most of the Marian feast days were still celebrated, only a year before Bach had written a Magnificat (Mary’s song of praise) for Christmas, and many medieval customs were still present.

Because of all this, I would like to think that Bach wanted to mark this special occasion, and might have chosen the chorale Das neugeborne Kindelein from 1597 on purpose for his cantata for this day, because of the mention of “Jubeljahr” in the last verse. Whether the original writer of the chorale might have alluded to the Lutheran belief that the union of God with people makes every year a Jubilee, or to the then upcoming Jubilee and turn of the century in 1600, I don’t know. But nowhere else in Bach’s cantata oeuvre is do we see the word “Jubeljahr.”

The text of the chorale builds on the early medieval tradition of melting the story of Jesus’ birth with the celebration of the New Year, talking about the newborn baby Jesus at the same time as announcing that the year has ended and this is a true Jubilee.

However Bach and his librettist don’t go all the way with the medieval world view: They change the original text of the third verse of the chorale, used for the fourth movement of the cantata, Trotz Türken, Papst und Höllen Pfort (Despite Turks,the Pope and the gates of hell) into Trotz Teufel und der Höllen Pfort (Despite the devil and the gates of hell). In 1725 the fear for a Turkish invasion was probably not as palpable as it had been in 1597, when the chorale was originally written.

Other things to listen for in cantata 122: The amazing high c in the soprano recitative. The leap of a fifth from f to c and then the octave back to c in the soprano recitative on the words “Die Engel” (the angels) had actually just occurred one movement earlier, two octaves lower, in the bass aria, on the words “O Menschen” (Oh people). Gardiner says this musical illustration that heaven/angels (high voice and highest instruments: recorders) and earth/people (low voice and cello) become one makes him think of the angels and men hugging in the forefront of Mystic Nativity by Botticelli, and this is why I decided to feature that as the illustration for today’s blog post.

Wieneke Gorter, December 30, 2017

*In 1723, Bach’s first year in Leipzig, the Sunday after Christmas was December 26, Second Christmas Day.

** The concept of “Jubeljahr” comes from the Old Testament, where Leviticus describes that after 7×7 years, you sould celebrate a Year of Jubilee, the 50th year. However in1470 Pope Paul II issued a Bull to fix the Jubilee for every twenty-five years, starting in 1475, so that every generation could have a Jubilee.

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

30 Monday Oct 2017

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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, 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.  The entire recording is only available on Amazon, but worth the extra trouble to get it. This is not a plug for Amazon at all, but for the artists. It was their choice to make their recordings available this way, and not offer them on Spotify or YouTube (except for one single track per cantata).

If you prefer to listen on YouTube, this recording by McCreesh/Gabrieli Consort & Players is a good alternative. (Ann Monoyios, soprano; Angus Davidson, counter-tenor; Charles Daniels, tenor; Peter Harvey, bass). The soprano aria on this recording is fabulous, but because of some–to me–distracting issues with pronunciation and text-expression in other movements, I prefer the Bach Foundation recording overall.

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 (in German, but the music examples are universal), 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 Bach Founation recording. Another fabulous recording of this aria is the one by Cristoph Prégardien on the Christophe Coin CD. Listen to it here.

Christophe Coin is, by the way, also the guest artist on the Bach Foundation recording of this cantata, doing a fabulous job playing violoncello piccolo in the soprano chorale.  If you really can’t or don’t want to listen to that recording on Amazon, you can still catch a bit of it on Youtube: their video of the soprano aria only, with Maria Christina Kiehr. Sublime interpretation by all, with levity, freedom, and abandon in the orchestra and superb singing by Kiehr. If you wonder where you know here voice from: she appears on many Savall recordings alongside Montserrat Figueras.

Wieneke Gorter, October 30, 2017

** 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.

Bass arias with trumpet

22 Sunday Oct 2017

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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 Kooy’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 (Bach Collegium Japan recording from 1999 with Peter Kooy, bass; Toshio Shimada, trumpet)

August 1, 1723: “Dein Wetter zog sich auf von weiten” from Cantata 46 (Herreweghe recording from 2012 with Peter Kooy, 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 (Gardiner recording from 2000 with Dietrich Henschel, bass; Mark Bennett, 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.

If you don’t want to miss an episode of this 1724/1725 chorale cantata exploration, please consider signing up  to receive an email every time I’ve posted a new story. How to do this: If you are on a desktop computer, look to the left of this text, where it says “Follow Blog via Email,” enter your email address, and press the “Follow” button. If you are reading this on a smartphone, keep scrolling down until you find the same text.

 

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

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 (the 5th after Easter, or Rogate 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. You can find that recording here on Amazon or here on iTunes. 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 with tenor Christoph Prégardien and bass Klaus Mertens. You can find that recording on YouTube, Amazon, or iTunes.

2020 update: read my blog post of May 15, 2020, to find links to the live video recording by The Netherlands Bach Society, with Robin Blaze, coutertenor, and Shunske Sato, violin.

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, updated May 15, 2020.

*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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Thomaskirche_Interior

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