Weekly Cantata

~ A weekly guide to Bach cantatas according to the Lutheran Church year

Weekly Cantata

Tag Archives: St. John Passion

Good Friday in 1725

30 Friday Mar 2018

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

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Andreas Scholl, Cecile Kempenaers, Collegium Vocale Gent, Dominik Wörner, Malcolm Bennett, Mark Padmore, Michael Volle, Philippe Herreweghe, Sebastian Noack, Sibylla Rubens, St. John Passion, St. Matthew Passion

IMG-4407

Detail of The Arrest of Christ by Hieronymus Bosch, ca. 1515. San Diego Museum of Art.

As I’ve mentioned over the past few months, Bach might have initially been planning to perform a St. Matthew Passion on Good Friday in 1725 in Leipzig.

If he was indeed planning that, he didn’t finish it in time. Did he run out of time, did he have a conflict with the Leipzig City Council, or did he change his mind? We don’t know. Fact is that on Good Friday 1725 he performed a new version of his St. John Passion from the year before. The most notable difference is the new opening chorus: O, Mensch, bewein dein Sünden groß instead of the Herr, unser Herrscher from the year before.

Find Herreweghe’s recording from 2001 of that 1725 St. John Passion here on YouTube.

Soloists are: Tenor [Evangelist, Arias]: Mark Padmore; Bass [Jesus]: Michael Volle; Soprano: Sibylla Rubens; Counter-tenor: Andreas Scholl; Bass [Arias, Pilatus]: Sebastian Noack; Bass [Petrus]: Dominik Wörner; Tenor [Servus]: Malcolm Bennett; Soprano [Ancilla]: Cecile Kempenaers

But let’s just leave the St. Matthew / St. John discussion for what it is, and just look at that opening chorus. Having followed Bach’s 1724/1725 chorale cantatas in the order he wrote and performed them, it is not a stretch to consider that Bach might have been working up to this elaborate chorale fantasia since February 2. I mentioned in my post for that day that it felt as if something new was coming.

When you look at Cantatas 125, 126, 127, and 1, the four cantatas Bach wrote and performed between February 2 and March 25, you see a beautiful line-up of chorale fantasias, one even more special than the other. So perhaps there was no stress or doubt at all in Bach’s mind about what to write for Good Friday 1725, at least not as far as the opening chorus was concerned. He might have been planning for O, Mensch to open his Good Friday passion since the end of January, and might have been doing studies for it in Cantatas 125, 126, 127, and 1.

Wieneke Gorter, March 30, 2018

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

05 Monday Mar 2018

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

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Amsterdam Baroque Choir, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Bach, Bine Katrine Bryndorf, Bogna Bartosz, Copenhagen, Garnisons Kirke, Grote Kerk Leeuwarden, Jörg Dürmüller, John Eliot Gardiner, Leeuwarden, Leipzig, Margaret Faultless, Schübler, St. John Passion, St. Matthew Passion, St. Thomas Church, Ton Koopman

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

Bach in Vienna / Robin Blaze going wild

06 Sunday Nov 2016

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

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Bach Collegium Japan, Eduard van Hengel, Gerd Türk, Jason Victor Serinus, John Eliot Gardiner, Masaaki Suzuki, Peter Kooy, Robin Blaze, San Francisco Classical Voice, St. John Passion, St. Matthew Passion

kokoschka_pieta

Pietà (It is enough) / Pietà (Es ist genug), plate 11 from a series of 11 lithographs O Ewigkeit, Du Donnerwort by Oskar Kokoschka, 1914/1916. Museum of Modern Art, New York.

In Vienna, they were all talking about Bach’s cantata 60 O Ewigkeit, Du Donnerwort. The astonishing harmonization in the closing chorale as well as the structure of a “dialogue” between Fear (alto) and Hope (tenor) made it one of the most unusual among his cantatas, and apparently something worth discussing. In the first half of the 20th century, that is. In 1935  Alban Berg used the “modern” harmonization from the closing chorale Es ist genug in the final movement of his violin concerto To the Memory of an Angel–an instrumental Requiem for Manon Gropius, daughter of Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius and Mahler’s widow, Alma Schindler.

Several years before, the same Alma Schindler had a short-lived affair with Czech painter Oskar Kokoschka. After they broke up, Kokoschka processed his torment by making a series of 11 lithographs to illustrate the cantata. The dialogue between Fear (the alto) and Hope (the tenor) in the cantata became a dialogue between Alma and himself, in pictures only: click here to see the entire series. Many thanks to Eduard van Hengel for pointing this out.

Listen to Bach Collegium Japan’s recording of this cantata on Spotify, with countertenor Robin Blaze and tenor Gerd Türk. Find the German text with English translations here, and the score here.

Bach wrote this cantata 60 O Ewigkeit, Du Donnerwort for the 24th Sunday after Trinity in 1723, the Sunday normally linked to the Gospel story of the Raising of Jairus’ Daughter. However, in 1723–as now in 2016–this day fell on the first Sunday in November: All Hallows Sunday, All Saints Sunday, however you want to call it, but the Sunday on which the congregation would have commemorated all who had passed away that year. None of the commentaries I have read mention this, but I think it is important, because I feel this cantata is much more about how horrible it might be to die, or the thoughts one has when sitting at a loved one’s deathbed, than it is about the Raising of Jairus’ Daughter.

Of all the recordings I listened to, I like Bach Collegium Japan’s the best, because of Robin Blaze’s interpretation of the alto part. I always love his voice, but he is usually quite understated in his singing. He explains this well in this interview on San Francisco Classical Voice. I sometimes wish he would indeed sing with Kate Bush and “let go” a little, so I was thrilled to hear that in this cantata he actually does go a bit wild, for his standards at least, and that Suzuki lets him do it. His conviction in the opening chorale is already terrific (also note the wonderful blend with the horn doubling his part), but the way he sings the text “Und martert diese Glieder” (and tortures these limbs) in movement 2 is amazing, spot-on, and unrivaled by any others I listened to.

As we have seen before in the course of these 1723 Trinity Season cantatas (read for example my post on cantata 105) there are elements of Bach’s passions already present in this cantata. The agitated singing of the tenor in the stunningly beautiful duet (movement 3) resembles the Ach, mein Sinn! tenor aria from the St. John Passion. The repeated tremolo in the violins in movement 1 is something Bach often uses to illustrate fear, and this will show up again in the tenor arioso O Schmerz! Hier zittert das gequälte Herz in his St. Matthew Passion.

For further reading, including all the amazing harmonies in this piece which impressed the Viennese composers of the early 20th century,  as well as other insights, I can highly recommend Gardiner’s journal entry about this cantata (start reading on page 5).

Wieneke Gorter, November 6, 2016.

Tenor drama

16 Sunday Oct 2016

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

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Bach, Damien Guillon, Dorothee Mields, John Eliot Gardiner, La Petite Bande, Leipzig, Paul Agnew, Peter Kooy, Phlippe Herreweghe, St. John Passion, Thomas Hobbs

bwv109_tenormanuscript

Excerpt from the start of the tenor recitative from cantata 109, with “piano” and “forte” marked. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz

For this 21st Sunday after Trinity, Bach wrote cantata 109 Ich glaube, lieber Herr, hilf meinem Unglauben! in 1723.

For overall best performance, I recommend Herreweghe’s recording from 2013, with counter-tenor Damien Guillon and tenor Thomas Hobbs.

Listen to this recording on YouTube. To support the artists, please consider purchasing the entire album on Amazon — a good deal if you like this blog, as it also includes three cantatas I discussed here earlier this year: cantata 44, cantata 73, and cantata 48.

Read the German texts with English translations here, and find the score here.

I love Herreweghe’s interpretation of  the opening and closing chorus as well as Damien Guillon’s singing in the alto recitative and aria.

However, there is an extremely dramatic and unusual recitative and aria for tenor in this cantata which I like better on the Gardiner recording. The recitative is unusual because Bach has two voices/persons speak: the uncertain/fearful voice, marked “piano” in his manuscript (see picture above), and the certain/faithful voice, marked “forte” in the manuscript. According to Gardiner, this feature never appears anywhere else in Bach’s recitative writing.

Just as with the “Storm on the lake” aria from cantata 81, only Gardiner and the fabulous Paul Agnew are able to properly convey the drama of the text and context of this tenor recitative and aria. If at first you think this might be a bit over the top, it is most probably exactly what Bach had in mind. A bit of opera to properly bring out the agony of the text.

Listen to these two movements by Gardiner and Agnew on YouTube: the recitative here, and the aria here.

Bach might have been preparing the Leipzig congregations for the St. John Passion he was planning for Good Friday 1724, as this tenor aria is very similar in dramatic intensity and music to the Ach mein Sinn aria from that passion. Those who know the St. John Passion well might hear other resemblances in this cantata 109.

 

Wieneke Gorter, October 16, 2016

R.I.P. Nikolaus Harnoncourt

06 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by cantatasonmymind in Cantatas, Leipzig

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Bach, chorales, Concentus Musicus Wien, Harnoncourt, Kurt Equiluz, Robert Holl, St. John Passion

harnoncourt

Yesterday evening, Saturday March 5, 2016, conductor and cellist Nikolaus Harnoncourt left this world. He was an important part of the Sunday Bach cantata tradition my mother started in our family, and she was a great admirer of him. Even though my mother passed away more than five years ago, I feel she died a little more for me today, now that I know Harnoncourt is gone.

Somewhere in the 1980s, with my parents and my sister, I attended a performance of Bach’s Passion according to St. John which Harnoncourt directed in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. We had seats in the section behind the orchestra and choir, so that we could watch him communicate with the players and singers. I will never forget that. Afterwards, my mother–who was singing in a Bach choir herself at the time–said that it would mean the world to her if she could ever sing in a choir conducted by Harnoncourt. It never happened for her, but the combination of her saying this and me seeing Harnoncourt at work inspired me to join a Bach choir in my first year of college.

Even though Harnoncourt made an incredible amount of recordings (see his timeline for a list of all of them), there is nothing like seeing (an) excellent artist(s) live on stage. To see them work, interact, and to feel their energy is an experience you’ll never forget and which is worth so much more than earthly possessions. So if there is someone you admire but only know from recordings, go hear and see them live while they’re still alive! Make the effort. You will be glad you did.

Watch Harnoncourt conduct Bach’s Passion according to St. John on this video recorded in Graz, Austria, in 1985. It is a terrific example of the world class conductor he was. Don’t be put off by  the 30-year-old sound quality, especially noticeable in the oboes in the opening chorus. It is only that bad in the beginning, the rest of the recording is a feast for the ears and eyes, not in the least because of the excellent performance (and singing technique!) by Kurt Equiluz as evangelist.

Listening to the Passion according to St. John is also appropriate in the order of things on this blog, since Bach was working on this passion during Lent in 1724, and revising it in 1725. And this way, come Good Friday (March 25, 2016), I can perhaps talk about the other passion 🙂

Wieneke Gorter, Sunday March 6, 2016.

 

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