Weekly Cantata

~ Memories, musings, and movie script fantasies inspired by Bach cantatas, along with recommendations for recordings

Weekly Cantata

Tag Archives: Miah Persson

Sinful pride versus humility

22 Saturday Aug 2020

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

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Bach Collegium Japan, BWV 102, BWV 113, BWV 179, BWV 199, BWV 46, Miah Persson, Peter Kooij, Robin Blaze, Trinity 11

Church interior with the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican by Dutch painters Dirck van Delen (church interior) and Cornelis van Poelenburch (figures), 1653. Oil on panel. The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, USA, currently not on view.

The reading for this Sunday, the 11th after Trinity, is the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (or Tax Collector) from the Gospel of Luke. In the parable, these two men come into the temple to pray around the same time, but talk to God in very different ways. While the Pharisee puts on a fake show about how good he is, the tax collector is very humble, “wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven” and asks for forgiveness.

“There’s something with this Sunday,” I wrote three years ago, and I still feel that way when I listen to the cantatas Bach wrote for this Sunday in 1723 and 1724.

In 1723, his first year in Leipzig, Bach performed two cantatas on this Sunday: Cantata 179 Siehe zu, daß deine Gottesfurcht kein Heuchelei sei (See that your fear of God is not hypocrisy) before the sermon, and his solo cantata for soprano Cantata 199 Mein Herze schwimmt in Blut (from his early years in Weimar) afterwards. Cantata 199 is only loosely related to the Gospel story, and was probably never written with this story in mind. Because of its multi-layered history and the many different recordings, I will discuss that composition some other time.

Cantata 179 focuses on the hypocrisy of the Pharisee, and just like cantatas 46 and 102 I discussed last week, it must have been one of Bach’s own favorites, because he re-used three movements in later works. Read all about it in my post from 2016, which I have updated with better images and new video links.

In 1724, Bach wrote cantata 113 Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut, which, surprise, surprise, focuses on the Publican asking for mercy. The only recording that does this cantata justice and gives me the good kind of stomachache is the one by Bach Collegium Japan. Peter Kooij’s and Robin Blaze’s singing is outstanding, and Yukari Nonoshita and Robin Blaze make the duet into a lovely piece of music, which is–judging from a lot of other recordings–not an easy thing to do. I updated my blog post from 2017 with all the correct links to stream or purchase this recording. Please find it here.

Wieneke Gorter, August 22, 2020.

My favorite sopranos for the third Sunday before Lent

18 Saturday Feb 2017

Posted by cantatasonmymind in Cantatas, Leipzig, Septuagesima

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BWV 144, BWV 84, Dorothee Mields, John Eliot Gardiner, Leipzig, Miah Persson, Phlippe Herreweghe, Septuagesima

workers_vineyard
Parable of the workers in the vineyard by Salomon Koninck. Between 1647 and 1649. Hermitage Museum.

On the third Sunday before Lent in 1724, Bach performed Cantata 144 Nimm, was dein ist, und gehe hin. Read all about this short but wonderful work in my blog post from 2016, in which I discuss an unrivaled recording by Gardiner with mezzo soprano Wilke te Brummelstoete and soprano Miah Persson.

In that cantata from 1724 Bach wrote one soprano aria on the concept of “Genügsamkeit” (being satisfied with what you have), but three years later, he dedicated an entire solo work for soprano to this theme: Cantata 84 Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Glücke (I am content in my good fortune), featuring the delightful aria Ich esse mit Freuden mein weniges Brot (It is with joy that I eat my meager piece of bread). We can probably take this as proof that Genügsamkeit was very important to Bach.

Find the German texts with English translations of Cantata 84 here, and the score here.

dorothee-mields-100_v-ardaustauschformat
Dorothee Mields

I myself count among my blessings that Herreweghe’s recording of this cantata features one of my favorite sopranos, Dorothee Mields. Read more about her in my post about the Herreweghe sopranos.

I listened to many recordings of this cantata, and I still (2020) love this interpretation the best. Mields is a terrific chamber musician together with the instrumentalists throughout this cantata, listen to the interplay between her and oboist Marcel Ponseele. I feel her voice sounds the most natural in aria “Ich esse mit Freuden mein weniges Brot.” The way she starts “Ein ruhig gewissen” the first time that comes around is just to die for as far as I’m concerned. I also like Herreweghe’s tempos the best of all the recordings I’ve listened to.

Enjoy Dorothee Mields’ singing and her being a terrific chamber musician together with the instrumentalists on Herreweghe’s recording of cantata 84 Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Glücke on YouTube or on Spotify. The cantata appears on Herreweghe’s album Christus der ist mein Leben from 2007, which also includes two other fabulous cantatas: 95 and 161. If you like these recordings, please consider purchasing (the MP3 of) this album on Amazon.de or on Amazon.com. Or purchase the album on iTunes or whatever platform you prefer. Thanks for supporting the artists!

Wieneke Gorter, February 18, 2017, last updated February 6, 2022.


Third Sunday in Advent: Two adorable infants and a reconstruction of cantata 186a

10 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by cantatasonmymind in Advent, Cantatas, Weimar

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Advent, Advent 3, Bach, BWV 186, BWV 186a, cantatas, chorales, Collegium Vocale Gent, Miah Persson, Peter Kooy, Phlippe Herreweghe, reconstruction, Robin Blaze, Weimar

madonna_meadow

Madonna with the Christ Child and St. John the Baptist, also known as Madonna of the Meadow, by Raphael, 1506. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

For those of you who already saw this on the third Sunday of Advent 2016: please keep reading, because I considerably revised this post, clarifying the information about the reconstruction and including one more painting 🙂

Growing up, I had a cousin. She was almost exactly six  months older than me. My baby photo album holds several pictures of the two of us together, me a helpless baby, her an infant who could already sit up by herself. I’m always touched by those photos. Not just because they make me think of the cousin I lost when we were both 19, but also because they represent how fast a baby grows up, and how soon the “older” baby can be of help and entertainment for the younger one, and how adorable it is to see that.

Many painters were aware of this cuteness factor too. Especially in the Renaissance, the concept of a one-year-old John playing with or helping a six-month-old Jesus in Madonna and Child paintings became an extremely popular subject, starting with  Leonardo da Vinci. Raphael in particular painted several variations on this theme, including the Alba Madonna, La belle jardinière, Aldobrandini Madonna, Madonna della seggiola, and the Madonna dell’Impannata. The tradition continued well into the 17th century, see this beautiful example from 1658 by Francisco de Zurbarán in the San Diego Museum of Art:

Zurbaran_Madonna_and_Child

Why is all this relevant to Advent? Well, on this third Sunday of Advent, many Christian churches read about John the Baptist, as they believe John was Jesus’ forerunner. Because of a mention in the Gospel of Luke, the Catholic church in the very early Middle Ages determined that St. John’s birthday must have been exactly six months before Christmas — and decided to celebrate this on June 24th.*  You can read more about this in my post about the Feast of St. John.

As far as we know, Bach wrote only one cantata for this Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent. It is the one listed in the BWV catalog as Cantata 186a, Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht, first performed in Weimar on Sunday December 13, 1716. No original music score is left of this cantata. However, thanks to Bach’s librettist, Weimar court poet Salomo Franck, who published the full libretto for this cantata in a poetry volume in 1717, we do have the original text of 186a.

And, it is not hard to make an educated guess as to what the music would have been.

On July 9, 1723, for the 7th Sunday after Trinity in Leipzig, Bach expanded the music of the 1716 Weimar cantata with four additional recitatives and two chorales (per his usual template for reviving Weimar cantatas for Leipzig), and we do have that music: it is Cantata 186, also with the title Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht.**

To reconstruct the original 1716 Weimar Advent version, or Cantata 186a, one would have to eliminate all the recitatives Bach added in 1723 as well as both chorales, superimpose different texts on some of the arias, and select alternative music for the original closing chorale. There have been a few performances of these kind of reconstructions, but unfortunately there are no recordings of those.

So I invite you listen to Bach Collegium Japan playing this music via my playlist on Spotify. To imagine the original texts superimposed over this music, and learn why I selected this particular closing chorale, please keep reading.

Opening chorus: This has the same text in 1716 as in 1723. We should imagine a smaller ensemble singing this though, as the maximum number of singers in the Weimar chapel was 7. This opening chorus is again a beautiful example of how Bach provides an “entrada” for the Duke as well as an opportunity for himself to show off his skills with the “fashionable” music, the way he almost always did in the Weimar cantatas.***

Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht,
Daß das allerhöchste Licht,
Gottes Glanz und Ebenbild,
Sich in Knechtsgestalt verhüllt,
Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht!
Do not be confounded, o soul,
because the all-highest light,
God’s radiance and very image,
is concealed in the form of a servant;
do not be confounded!

For the Bass aria, imagine this Advent text instead of the Trinity 7 text you hear (changes in bold type):

Bist du, der da kommen soll,
Seelen-Freund, in Kirchen-Garten?
Mein Gemüt ist Zweifels-voll,
Soll ich eines andern warten!
Doch, o Seele, zweifle nicht.
Lass Vernunft dich nicht verstricken,
Deinen Schilo, Jacobs Licht,
Kannst du in der Schrift erblicken!
Are You He, who should come,
Friend of souls, to the Church’s garden?
My spirit is full of doubt,
perhaps I should wait for someone else!
Yet, o soul, do not doubt.
Do not let reason beguile you.
Your Messiah, Jacob’s light,
is visible to you in the scripture.(translation of original text by me, unchanged words courtesy of bach-cantatas.com website)

For the Tenor aria,  imagine this Advent text instead of the Trinity 7 text you hear (changes in bold type):

Messias läßt sich merken
Aus seinen Gnaden-Werken.
Unreine werden rein.
Die geistlich Lahme gehen,
Die geistlich Blinde sehen
Den hellen Gnaden Schein.
The Messiah lets Himself be seen
in His works of grace.
The impure become purified.
Those lame of spirit will walk,
Those blind of spirit will see
the clear brilliance of the mercy.(translation of original text by me, unchanged words courtesy of bach-cantatas.com website)

There is only one word change in the Soprano aria: In the last line the 1716 text is “des Lebens Wort” instead of “das Lebenswort” from 1723.

Die Armen will der Herr umarmen
The Lord will embrace the poor
Mit Gnaden hier und dort;
With his mercy here and there;
Er schenket ihnen aus Erbarmen
Out of his compassion he sends to them
Den höchsten Schatz, das Lebenswort.
His greatest treasure, the word of life.

Enjoy Miah Persson’s beautiful voice and interpretation. If you would like to hear and more about her, read my post about cantata 179. Cantata 179 appears on the same album by Bach Collegium Japan as this cantata 186.

Soprano-alto duet: This is the original text from 1716, unchanged in 1723. The text promises the believer the crown (die Krone) of the everlasting life, but only if he stays faithful (getreu) and only in the afterlife, when free of the body (wenn des Leibes frei).

Laß, Seele, kein Leiden
My soul, let no sorrow
Von Jesu dich scheiden,
Separate you from Jesus
Sei, Seele, getreu!
Be faithful, my soul!
Dir bleibet die Krone
The Crown weight you
Aus Gnaden zu Lohne,
Is your reward through grace
Wenn du von Banden des Leibes nun frei.
When you will be free from the body’s prison.

In Weimar in 1716, for the closing chorale Bach used the 8th verse of Von Gott will ich nicht lassen from 1563, based on the French tune Une jeune fillette from 1557. Since this is not the same melody as Es ist das Heil uns kommen her Bach used in 1723 it is very plausible that both chorales from the 1723 version are new, in text as well as in music. So in an effort to reconstruct the 1716 version,  we need to think of a different solution for the music than the tune from 1723. A good fit would be a simple setting of the Von Gott will ich nicht lassen chorale, the way Bach would set for example verse 5 of this chorale as closing movement of cantata 73 in 1723 or 1724. So that’s why, for now, I’ve included that music (from a Herreweghe recording) in the Spotify playlist. The text would be this:

Darum ob ich schon dulde
Hie Wiederwärtigkeit,
wie ich auch wohl verschulde,
kommt doch die Ewigkeit,
ist aller Freuden voll,
die ohne alles Ende,
dieweil ich Christum kenne,
mir widerfahren soll.
Therefore, even if I endure
unpleasantness here,
as I have well deserved,
eternity is coming
filled with all joy;
this for ever
will befall me
while I acknowledge Christ.

All translations of existing text and closing chorale courtesy of bach-cantatas.com website, translations of changed texts by me.

© Wieneke Gorter, December 10, 2016, revised December 15, 2017.

* Luke 1:36 (about the Annunciation) mentions that the angel Gabriel also informed Mary that her cousin Elizabeth was already six months pregnant. The June 24 date was most probably also chosen to give a Christian meaning to already existing Pagan Midsummer celebrations. The Feast of St. John being celebrated on June 24 shows up in records as early as the year 506.

**I discussed this 1723 version of the cantata here, and recommended the recording by Bach Collegium Japan with soprano Miah Persson, alto Robin Blaze, tenor Makoto Sakurada, and bass Peter Kooij.

***Read more about Bach’s Weimar cantatas in my posts about cantata 182, 12, 147, and 21

Trinity 11, 1723: Bach on a roll

14 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by cantatasonmymind in 1723 Trinity season special series, Bach's life, Cantatas, Leipzig, Trinity

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11th Sunday after Trinity, according to Lutheran Church year, Agnès Mellon, Bach Collegium Japan, BWV 105, BWV 136, BWV 179, BWV 234, BWV 236, BWV 46, Collegium Vocale Gent, Masaaki Suzuki, Miah Persson, Peter Kooij, Philippe Herreweghe, Thomas Hobbs

8ea433d635c0bd84d61c155e0969f602c9c37beb
Mendelssohn’s sketch of the Thomasschule (St. Thomas School) and, behind it, the Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church) in Leipzig.

Thank you for following this blog, and thank you for reading this long post all the way to the end!

For Trinity 11, which was last Sunday (August 7 in 2016, August 8 in 1723) we’re listening to Cantata 179 Siehe zu, daß deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei, with a superb opening chorus and one of the most beautiful soprano arias Bach ever wrote.

MiahPersson_MonikaRittershaus
Miah Persson. Photo by Monika Rittershaus.

I prefer Bach Collegium Japan’s recording of this cantata. It’s a special recording, with Miah Persson singing the soprano aria. She’s having quite a career now, recently starring in Michel van der Aa’s opera Blank Out, singing Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at the Scala in Milan in September and October, and going on a recital tour in the USA  later this season [2016/2017], so I think we’re lucky to have her beautiful voice and sensitive interpretation on this recording from 1999.

Listen to this recording on Spotify. Please consider purchasing this recording on jpc.de, ArkivMusic, Amazon, or iTunes. Soloists on this recording are Miah Persson, soprano; Makoto Sakurada, tenor; and Peter Kooij, bass.

The BBC recorded Gardiner’s live performance of this cantata in 2000, and you can watch that here on youTube. Soloists in this performance are Magdalena Kožená, soprano; Mark Padmore, tenor; and  Stephan Loges, bass.

Find the score here (it’s fun to read along with the recording, especially in the opening chorus, to see what Bach does with the fugue).

Find the German text with English translation here.

It is now more than two months since Bach started his new job in Leipzig, and he is about three weeks into writing a brand new composition every week, and I’m sorry if I sound too casual here, but he’s on a roll. He must now have a vision of what it is he really wants to do for these churches (see the tiny preludes to his Passions he incorporates in cantatas 105 and 46), and he must have the classes at the St. Thomas School organized, and his singers sufficiently trained, so that he can now have them sing a new and challenging opening chorus every week.  Just listening to the opening choruses alone, starting with the one of cantata 136 for Trinity 8, I marvel at what he comes up with every time. Every single one of them is stunning, but at the same time completely different from the one of the previous Sunday. This time Bach chooses to write a perfect “old style” (Palestrina-style) motet fugue as opening chorus.

As always, to fully understand the cantata and not miss any of Bach’s hidden messages, it is important to look at the Gospel reading for the day. In this case 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” was very important to Bach and apparently his librettist got the message loud and clear. He or she uses the opportunity to first write a strong protest against fake religion and hypocrisy in “Christianity today” in movements 1 to 3 (probably having certain people in Leipzig in mind), after which he/she states that all Christians should take the humbleness of the publican as example in movements 4 to 6. For another example of how Bach interprets this Bible story, read my post about Cantata 113, written for this same 11th Sunday after Trinity, in 1724.

The most special feature of the fugue in the opening chorus is that since the text talks about beautiful outer appearance versus a bad character, Bach uses a mirror-fugue, which he used as well in fugues 5-7 from the Art of the Fugue (the theme of six bars is first introduced by the basses, and then is answered by the tenors in an “inversion:” every step up from the basses becomes a step down in the tenor part.)

To understand how Bach built this intricate fugue I am sharing the excellent music example and diagram by Dutch Bach writer Eduard van Hengel, with his permission:

179_diagram1
179-diagram2

Even though the text here is in Dutch, the diagram speaks for itself, with this quick explanation of the numbers and symbols:

1 = The theme (or first half-sentence of the text: Siehe zu, dass deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei). Note the ascending line on the word “Gottesfurcht” (fear of God/love of God) and the descending line on the word “Heuchelei” (hypocrisy).

2 = The counter-subject (or second half-sentence of this text: und diene Gott nicht mit falschem Herzen). Note here that there is a chromatic line every time the word “falschem” appears in the text: for the chromatic line the composers needs accidentals that are not part of the key the piece is written in, which in the “old polyphony” would be seen as “falsch” (not right, off-key).

Upward arrow = fugue theme regular

Downward arrow = fugue theme inversed (mirror fugue)

2* = a more compact (only 4 bars instead of 6 bars long) theme which is derived from the first counterpoint/counter-subject on the words und diene Gott nicht mit falschem Herzen, still with the chromatic line on falschem Herzen.

The numbers at the top are measure (“maat”) numbers.

Bach himself must have greatly valued this cantata. About 15 years later, he used no less than three movements from this cantata for use in his short masses, or Lutheran masses.**

The opening chorus was later “recycled” as the first movement (Kyrie) in the Mass in G Major, BWV 236. Keep listening, or scroll to 18:00 and you’ll discover that the tenor aria Quoniam (sung here by Thomas Hobbs) was, with some changes and a much slower tempo, recycled from the tenor aria in this cantata 179. In cantata 179 the tenor aria gets a colorful accompaniment of two oboes and first violins in unison. The second violins and violas fill in the meaningless middle part (representing the “nothingness, emptiness”). When recycling this later for the Quoniam in the Mass in G Major, Bach uses only one solo oboe for the accompaniment, and completely leaves out all strings (confirming that with a different text, the meaningless middle part is not relevant anymore).

This cantata’s wonderful soprano aria (with two oboi da caccia and basso continuo) was later reworked into the Qui Tollis for the Mass in A Major, BWV 234 (with two flutes and only high strings as continuo). This was actually how I first knew and loved this soprano aria, I didn’t know cantata 179 until I started listening to it for this blog. Please click on this link and listen to the amazing Agnès Mellon sing the Qui Tollis from the Mass in A Major.

Wieneke Gorter, August 14, 2016, updated August 21, 2020.

** These are called “short” or “Lutheran” masses because they consisted of only the Kyrie and Gloria part of the traditional Catholic mass. Bach wrote four of them (BWV 233-236), and they are all made up of existing movements from cantatas, but reworked and compiled in a very smart way and they are all absolutely beautiful. You can purchase an album with Herreweghe’s recording of all of them on jpc.de, iTunes, or Amazon.

Dutch memories, Dutch discoveries

06 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by cantatasonmymind in Cantatas, Leipzig, Septuagesima

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Bach, BWV 144, cantatas, English Baroque Soloists, J.S. Bach Foundation, John Eliot Gardiner, Miah Persson, Nuria Rial, Septuagesima, Wilke te Brummelstoete

Opnamedatum:  2012-04-06
Parabel of the Laborers in the Vineyard by Jan Luyken, print, 1703

A number of Dutch things converged for me when writing this post. Whenever I think about the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, the Bible story for this Septuagesima Sunday, or the third Sunday before Lent, I see the windows of my 3rd or 4th grade classroom.* I also have to think of my late grandfather reading this story from the Bible.  Quickly summarized, this story is: A landlord pays all his laborers equally, no matter how many hours they worked. Those that worked all day object.

My favorite recording of cantata 144 Nimm, was dein ist, und gehe hin (first performed on Sunday February 6, 1724) turns out to have two connections to my home country: It was recorded in the Grote Kerk in Naarden, during the Bach Pilgrimage tour of Gardiner/English Baroque Soloists, and it features Dutch singer Wilke te Brummelstoete as alto soloist. Counter-tenor fan that I am, I can safely state that I will mention no more than a handful of female altos on this blog each year, so this is pretty special.

Naarden, The Netherlands

The icing on the cake is the illustration I discovered when searching for a good picture to go with this blog post: an etching by Haarlem artist Jan Luyken as published in the Amsterdam Mortierbijbel (Bible published by Pieter Mortier) in 1703, from the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Listen to John Eliot Gardiner’s recording of cantata 144 on Spotify

Listen to John Eliot Gardiner’s recording of cantata 144 on Youtube

Soloists: Miah Persson, soprano; Wilke te Brummelstroete, alto;
James Oxley, tenor; Jonathan Brown, bass.

As I’m updating this post on February 8, 2020, the J.S. Bach Foundation has just released their entire live video recording of this cantata, and that one is wonderful too, especially because Nuria Rial sings the soprano aria. Find that video here on YouTube. Soloists are Nuria Rial, soprano; Markus Forster, alto; Raphael Höhn, tenor.

Read the German text with English translation of cantata 144

Find the score of cantata 144 here

What to listen for in cantata 144 Nimm, was dein ist, und gehe hin:

In the opening chorus: the illustration of the text gehe hin, gehe hin! (off you go!) with ascending figures, each gehe hin “retaken” so that the text really leaps off the page, more on the Gardiner recording than on other ones. Also listen how beautifully the sopranos and violins enhance each other’s sound in this movement. That happens too on the J.S. Bach Foundation recording.

In the alto aria:  The illustration of the grumbling workers by the repeated 8th-notes in the strings. The music on the text “Murre nicht” (Don’t grumble) is always low, the music with the text “Lieber Christ” (please note that this means “dear Christian,” not “dear Christ”) always goes up. Very well done in an appropriate style by Wilke te Brummelstoete on the Gardiner recording.

In the soprano aria: the glorification of the “Genügsamkeit” (being satisfied with what you have, a concept that must have been very important to Bach), and the wonderful voice of soprano Miah Persson on the Gardiner recording or the always radiant Nuria Rial on the J.S. Bach Foundation recording. Read more about Miah Persson in my blog post about cantata 179 and those about cantatas 186 and 186a. Read more about Nuria Rial in my posts about Cantata 36 and Cantata 89.

Thank you for reading! Please leave your email address in the “follow this blog” section on the left side of this blog post. You will receive an email by WordPress whenever I have posted a new story. Please note that the choice of words and spelling in their confirmation email is by WordPress, not me. My apologies for that, and many thanks to you for your patience while I work on a more elegant solution!

To support this blog, please consider purchasing Gardiner’s album featuring cantata 144 on Amazon. I receive a small percentage of every sale made through this link. And it would be so fun if someone would actually buy a CD through this link. So far (February 13, 2020), it hasn’t happened 😉 Thank you!

Wieneke Gorter, February 6, 2016, updated February 8 and 13, 2020.

*Though a protestant school, it was pretty moderate in its teachings, and I don’t really remember Bible reading in the classroom. However, we learned a hymn every week and the reason I have to think of the classroom when reading this parable probably has to do with the hymn “De eersten zijn de laatsten” (The first will be the last) which is based on this same story.

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