Tag Archives: tromba da tirarsi

First Sunday after Easter 1724

23 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by in After Easter, Bach's life, Cantatas, Leipzig

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The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio, 1601-1602, Sanssouci Palace, Potsdam, Germany

In the past two weeks I ran out of time to work on this blog because of being sick, performing concerts with California Bach Society, and being on a trial jury for the first time since becoming a United States citizen in 2011. So this post for the First Sunday after Easter in 1724 is post-dated, and short, but contains lots of information to learn more about this beautiful cantata.

Previously in 1724: Bach “premiered” his Passion according to St. John on Good Friday, April 7, 1724. Then he ran out of time and energy and, without too much care for detail and text illustration, created cantatas out of existing music for Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday of that year.

This means that the first new composition he wrote after the St. John Passion was this cantata 67 Halt im Gedächtnis Jesum Christ (keep thinking of Jesus Christ), based on the Gospel text of Jesus appearing to his disciples. A famous cantata, already known and admired in the early 19th century, especially because of the dramatic fourth movement for choir and bass, which Bach would later transform into the Gloria of his Missa Brevis in A (BWV 234).

For the background of this cantata I will refer you to the experts, in this 15-minute video by the Netherlands Bach Society, published within their AllofBach series. The video is in Dutch, with English subtitles. It talks about Bach including a flute (not a recorder!) for the first time in a cantata, the meaning behind the text, and the use of the slide-trumpet “corno da tirarsi.”

Listen to and watch their performance here, find the text here, and find the score here. The Netherlands Bach Society, conducted by Jos van Veldhoven, with countertenor Alex Potter, tenor Thomas Hobbs, and bass Peter Kooij.

Wieneke Gorter, April 30, 2017.

The Opening Chorus’ Silver Lining

01 Saturday Oct 2016

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

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Healing of the Cripple (on left) and Raising of Tabitha (on right) by Masolino da Panicale, 1424-25. Fresco in the Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy.

My head has been in the St. Matthew Passion. For a few weeks already. Yes, that is pretty strange for me, having grown up in a house where Bach’s music was played often, but only on the Sundays and holidays for which it was written (read more about that in this blog post). However, it can happen when one sings in a Bach Choir in the United States. While in The Netherlands all 180 (!) St. Matthew Passion concerts happen in the weeks before Easter, here in the USA the piece is presented much less often, and the only classical music performances with a strong seasonal tie are those of Handel’s Messiah in the weeks before Christmas.

But working on the St. Matthew Passion and this Weekly Cantata blog at the same time has been a blessing, as the two areas of study influence each other. Nine months of research for this blog have inspired me to read more about the St. Matthew Passion and study the music in more detail. In that process I have learned many new things about the piece I thought I already knew so well. And experiencing the composition Bach’s sons referred to as their father’s Great Passion on a deeper level has, I believe, improved my understanding of Bach’s cantata writing.

Let’s just look at the opening chorus of this week’s cantata 48 Ich elender Mensch, written for the 19th Sunday after Trinity (October 3 in 1723).

I listened to Bach Collegium Japan (with Robin Blaze and Gerd Türk), Koopman (with Bernhard Landauer and Christoph Prégardien), Gardiner (with William Towers and James Gilchrist), Harnoncourt (with Paul Esswood and Kurt Equiluz), and Herreweghe (with Damien Guillon and Thomas Hobbs), and find Herreweghe’s interpretation the most moving. Herreweghe is also the only one who uses a tromba da tirarsi in the opening chorus, and I  love that sound. Listen to Herreweghe’s recording on YouTube or on Spotify. Please consider supporting the artists by purchasing the recording on Amazon: click here for USA, here for UK, here for Germany, or here for France.

Please find the German text with English translation here and the score here.

The main music is hauntingly beautiful (It’s not just the Herreweghe sopranos that give me goose bumps this time – the altos and tenors move me to tears, and none of this could happen without the basses providing that wonderful foundation for everyone to build on) but extremely downcast. It is clearly full of Elend (misery), in reference to the Gospel text of the day.* The same holds for the main music and words of the opening chorus of the St. Matthew Passion. It is clearly full of klagen (lamenting), and paints the picture of the Via Crucis, Jesus on his way to the cross.

However, in the midst of all the misery, a J.S. Bach opening chorus almost always provides a preview of the salvation that is to come later in the piece, or that is implied in the Gospel. In the opening chorus of the St. Matthew Passion he does this by superimposing the German Agnus Dei – the chorale O Lamm Gottes Unschuldig (O Lamb of God, unspotted), sung by a treble choir in G major, over the lamenting E minor of the two other choirs and orchestras. The repeated  auf unsre Schuld (for our sins) of Choir I is answered by the treble chorus with: All Sünd hast du getragen (you took away all sins).

The congregation in Leipzig, where the St. Matthew Passion was first performed on the afternoon of Good Friday in 1727, would have sung this German Agnus Dei earlier that day at the conclusion of the morning service. Back to this week’s cantata for October 3, 1723: in that Sunday service, the congregation might have sung the chorale Herr Jesu Christ, ich schreie zu dir:

Herr Jesu Christ ich schreie zu dir
Mit ganz betrübter Seele:
Dein Allmacht laß erscheinen mir
Und mich nicht also quäle.
Viel grösser ist die Angst und Schmerz.
So anficht und turbirt mein Herz,
Als daß ich kan erzählen.		 Lord Jesus Christ, I cry to you
With a soul that is wholly troubled:
Let your almighty power appear to me
And do not punish me in this way.
Far greater is the anguish and pain
That challenge and confuse my heart
Than I can explain

The congregation might thus have heard those words in their head, when two bars after the soprano entrance the tromba da tirarsi starts playing this melody, later followed by two oboes in unison. In this way, these three instruments accompany every choral passage with a new line from the chorale, and the chorale thus starts forming the frame of the opening chorus.

After this preview message in the opening chorus that Jesus might be able to offer salvation, we have to wait until the tenor aria for the all-around convincing message that everything will be OK, in music as well as in text:

Vergibt mir Jesus meine Sünden,

If Jesus forgives me my sins,
So wird mir Leib und Seele gesund.
then my body and soul will become healthy.
Er kann die Toten lebend machen
He can make the dead live
Und zeigt sich kräftig in den Schwachen,
and shows himself to be mighty in those who are weak,
Er hält den längst geschloßnen Bund,
he keeps the covenant made long ago
Daß wir im Glauben Hilfe finden.
that in faith we find support.

Wieneke Gorter, October 1, 2016

 

* The Gospel story for this 19th Sunday after Trinity was the miracle of Jesus healing a cripple. From the time the Gospel was written through Bach’s time, unfortunately, having a disability or illness was seen as carrying a sin. When Jesus heals the man, he also takes his sins away.

A most amazing trumpet part

21 Sunday Aug 2016

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

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The Good Samaritan by “the Master of the Good Samaritan,” Dutch, 1537

To fully appreciate today’s cantata, I encourage you to first listen to Luther’s hymn,  Dies sind die heil’gen Zehn Gebot (These are the holy Ten Commandments). I was not familiar with this tune, and had to do some research to understand what the slide trumpet was playing in the opening chorus. It was a very well-known hymn in Bach’s time. The Leipzig congregations sang it many times a year, and also sang it during the church services on Sunday August 22, 1723, the 13th Sunday after Trinity (probably preceded by an organ prelude in the style of BWV 635, see below). It was an important hymn for Bach. You can listen to his own chorale setting of it here.

It is also worthwhile to listen how Bach used this melody in three very different organ works: BWV 635, BWV 678, and BWV 679. He wrote BWV 635 as part of the Orgelbüchlein, in Weimar, the other two in the mid 1730s as part of the Clavier-Übung III.

The cantata for this Sunday, cantata 77 Du sollt Gott, deinen Herren, Lieben features this chorale-tune in the opening chorus, but only in the tromba da tirarsi (slide trumpet) part and the continuo part. In the continuo it appears in long notes, and is not as clearly audible as in the trumpet part. There are exactly ten entrances for the trumpet within that opening chorus, the last time featuring the entire chorale tune, of course pointing to the ten commandments.

Bach Collegium Japan’s recording showcases this feature the best of all recordings I listened to, superbly played by Toshio Shimada, on a real tromba da tirarsi. I also like his playing the best in the alto aria. Listen to this recording on Spotify.

Read the text here, and find the score here.

John Eliot Gardiner suggests that Bach made a theological statement by presenting his first two Trinity cantatas in Leipzig,  75 for Trinity 1 (focusing on the love of God/how to be before God) and 76 for Trinity 2 (focusing on brotherly love/how to love one’s neighbor) in close relation to each other, and that all through this 1723 Trinity season he has tried to reinforce the idea that those themes are connected, and how the believers should apply the laws from the Bible to themselves and to their own daily lives. He further argues that with this opening chorus he comes full circle back to that connection, by using a double fugue, by reminding the listeners of the “law” by way of the chorale in  the trumpet part, and by setting the text of the Gospel immediately preceding the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10):

27. Er antwortete und sprach: Du sollst GOtt, deinen HErrn, lieben von ganzem Herzen, von ganzer Seele, von allen Kräften und von ganzem Gemüt und deinen Nächsten als dich selbst.

  

[27] And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.

After the bass recitative and soprano aria further elaborating on the “Love for God”-theme, and the tenor aria on the “Good Samaritan / Love your neighbor”-theme, we are treated to the most amazing tromba da tirarsi playing of all Bach cantatas written for this instrument, in this very unusual and humble alto aria, beautifully sung by mezzo-soprano Kirsten Sollek, and expertly played on the slide trumpet by Toshio Shimada.

This is an incredibly difficult part for the tromba da tirarsi, and almost impossible to play well on a “regular” Baroque trumpet. Was this Bach’s way of illustrating the “Unvolkommenheit” in the text? Would even Reiche not have been able to play this perfectly, with only a few days rehearsal time? And/or did Bach want for people in the church to  pay attention, so that this would be a true moment of reflection in the service?

While today, having a trumpet play in a Bach cantata performance is considered “special,” (and expensive, since expert players usually have to travel from other cities or countries), in Bach’s time it was completely normal to have a trumpeter on the payroll, available every week. In the region where Bach lived and worked, the trumpeters were very good, and Bach knew them and their world well, especially since he had married into a trumpet family in 1721. All the men in Anna Magdalena Wilcke’s family that we know of (father, brother, and husbands of all three sisters) were well-regarded trumpeters at the Anhalt-Zerbst court, about 17 miles (28 km) directly north of Köthen, and the Saxe-Weissenfels court, about 22 miles (35 km) south-west of Leipzig.

Wieneke Gorter, August 20, 2016