BWV 9 - Es ist das Heil uns kommen her

Week 9 (26 February - 3 March 2013)

Recording: Karl Richter, Münchener Bach-Chor and Orchester; Edith Mathis, soprano; Julia Hamari, alto; Peter Schreier, tenor; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone

This week I have had the pleasure and privilege of performing Bach’s Mass in B minor, the Mt. Everest of sacred choral music. I had only sung portions before, and Thursday night marked my first time singing the complete Mass. Friday night’s concert all too likely will have been the last time – the opportunity to do this masterpiece doesn’t come around that often. But any singer who has performed this work will tell you to have participated in it even once is one of the great experiences for a musician. And I sang it twice! With a world-class ensemble and soloists, by the way. I’ve been very lucky. Although I wasn’t sure if I would also get through a cantata this week!

This composition about the means to salvation strikes the modern and non-Lutheran reader as somewhat contrary to the current Protestant mainstream. The theme of the text is that salvation is only obtained through faith – good works get you nothing. Whereas “good works” tend to be the raison d’être of the contemporary church: they build the profile of a church within a community, attract members, and draw in additional income to support the internal workings of the church. And what about the extrapolation from that theory, which implies you can have faith but not do good?

But at the time the original chorale was written, more than two hundred years before Bach set it, the church was a more forbidding and paternalistic authority. Especially in the early days of the Reformation, the role of the church in enforcing a moral code and training the lambs not to stray was still very much in the tradition of Catholicism. The author of the chorale, Paul Speratus, was a converted priest who helped Martin Luther compile the first Lutheran hymnal, the Achtliederbuch (1524, named for the eight hymns it contained, including this one).

This cantata is an excellent illustration of how Bach viewed worship music – not as an end in itself but as a vehicle for the message and subservient to it. The structure of the cantata is built around three basso recitatives that, as described by one commentator, form a “sermon”. The textual and musical crux of the sermon occurs in Movement 4, with such details as the treatment of unschuldig in M.7, emphasizing the listener’s inherent guilt in contrast to the guiltless one who died to redeem him or her. At the M.14 arioso, the voice carries on in recitative format, but the accompaniment references the chorale tune.

More evidence that Bach had it in for tenors is provided by the solo aria  which depicts the sinner trying futilely to resist the abyss – the upwardly surging strings are continually weighed down as they appear ready to break free, pulling the one without true faith back into sin. The illustrated letter E that begins the words of Es ist das Heil uns kommen her in the Achtliederbuch suggests the struggle.

Illustrated Letter from Achtliederbuch (1524)

The hapless tenor soloist receives a difficult vocal line that doesn’t always make melodic sense, until you remember this piece is about struggle and torment. The chosen 12/16 meter makes for some tricky rhythms and even trickier notation. The aria requires strength throughout nearly a two-octave range, at one point (M.66) requiring a rapid and massive leap from D3 to A5. You can almost hear the master laughing as he put ink to paper. (And a bass soloist snickering while he waits to do a few recitatives for which he is getting paid the same amount as the tenor.)

The soprano/alto duet is really a quartet: the introduction consists of alternating flute and oboe d’amore melodies that evolve into the vocal lines where the soprano and alto respectively sing variations on the flute and oboe parts, with the winds rejoining after the voices are established. The text is secondary, what Bach was interested in was creating this interweaving of instrument and voice. The words ride lightly on this lace-like cloth: just listening to the movement without knowing any German, one would not guess that the text essentially says it doesn’t matter how “good” you are – only unquestioning faith will be accepted at the pearly gates.

I can’t help loving it when the sopranos get assigned the cantus firmus, as by default this guarantees an interesting alto part. The two choral movements of BWV 9 have fine structure and great alto parts. One interesting bit is the B section of the coro, where on the text der hat g’nug für uns all’ getan the fugal entrance of the lower three voices (M. 100) is followed by the detached repetitions of that text, which he somehow manages to bring into synchronization in M. 105 to produce an emphatic g’nug für uns. Enough has been done for us, now it's our turn. This chorus is not as catchy as, say, the first movement of BWV 8, as it requires the listener to pay attention to detail to appreciate. But it's very fun to sing - at least the alto part is!

For recording this cantata, Karl Richter assembled a “dream team” – it’s hard to imagine any better singers for these parts were available at the time. Fischer-Dieskau is definitive as the “preacher” or whatever you want to term the basso role, and in addition to all his regular estimable qualities, he presents a lesson in impeccable ornamentation. If you program this cantata, you need to take as much care in selecting the bass-baritone as the more glamorous S/A/T parts. The voices of Mathis and Hamari blend magnificently with a fresh, youthful sound and natural phrasing – an excellent model to study and copy. Peter Schreier handles the twisting line and outlandish intervals of the tenor solo with a precision and panache that would have probably annoyed (but secretly delighted) J.S.

Although one source indicates that the component movements were recorded by Richter and his soloists at separate times, that in no way impairs the unity of the final product. In some ways it mirrors how the composer worked, often re-organizing earlier material to piece together a seamless new work. As, for example, the Mass in B minor…

Dona nobis pacem

BWV 8 - Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben

Week 8 (19 February - 24 February 2013)

Recording: Philippe Herreweghe, Collegium Vocale Ghent; Deborah York, soprano; Ingeborg Danz, alto; Mark Padmore, tenor; Peter Kooy, baritone

The question “when will I die” coalesces in our early youth, as soon as our conscious mind begins to grasp the concept of mortality, and persists with more or less psychological distance throughout our lives. We all know we must die: only the time and circumstances are in question.

The question of when we will die also interests, among others, insurance companies that base payouts for life annuity policies on actuarial tables estimating probable life spans based on an individual’s age at time of purchase. Actuarial science begins to assume modern form with the empirically-based work of polymath Briton Edmund Halley (1656-1742) – he of comet fame – and a 1693 article for the Royal Society which created a primitive actuarial table with the goal of allowing the British government to sell life annuities as a way to raise money. Halley realized that any meaningful mathematical model required actual birth/death data for verification, but he had no data for either London or England as a whole. However, he was able to obtain a set of birth and death statistics for the German town of Breslau, compiled by a preacher-academician-poet whose interest in demographics had led him to collect a significant amount of mortality data. This accidental statistician was Caspar Neumann (1648-1715), whose more philosophical ruminations on this topic are reflected in his hymn text Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben. And so we arrive at the cantata of the same name, by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).

Halley’s actuarial table

The title might lead you to expect a morbid exposition on death and dying, but Bach’s interpretation walks the question through a series of responses, also in the form of questions, that answer the original in the most positive and hopeful manner, arriving at the conclusion that dying is the best thing that will ever happen to you. The first movement coro is dominated by winds, with an insistent, proto-Verdian figuration in the flute. The repeated sixteenth notes, hammering at a given pitch and sometimes discordant with the accompaniment, seem to indicate the ticking of a clock, or a rapid heartbeat, perhaps caused by the underlying anxiety of not knowing which day will be our last. Hubert Parry compares it to “shuddering at the thought of death”; I’m not sure I agree with that, but it’s a good thought. The strings play pizzicato throughout the movement, adding another layer of unrest. The short choral phrases are interjections without much development but with a nice modulation into minor on the word sterben (4^th beat of M. 15). The movement ends with the last rappings of the flute leading into a final staccato eighth note chord – and just like that, it will all be over.

Herreweghe approaches this movement with a contemplative attitude; the chorus is immaculate and self-reflective, as if the question is here posed by an individual. For a different approach, since it’s becoming evident I’m partial to Helmuth Rilling’s Bach interpretations, I listened to his version, and his faster tempo makes it all come together very gracefully with a chorus just as immaculate albeit with a fuller, less Baroque sound. This chorus is a congregation asking the same question as a unit, in the character of a hymn.

The A-B format tenor aria asks why we should be so anxious, given that death is the fate of mankind and so many have gone before us. In a typical genius touch, Bach takes the line “wenn mein letzte Stunde schlägt” and sets it to music that portrays exactly that: the clock striking the last hour. The “viel tausend” of souls who have gone before are represented by apparently thousands of notes – in the tenor part alone, about (125) notes are utilized in the various repetitions of “tausend”.

The alto recitative has an operatic character: Furcht…Sorgen…Schmerz and the singer portrays the doubter who expresses the universal worries of mankind, such as how will those who are left behind when we pass find comfort.

The response to these concerns is given in joyous A major by the following bass aria Doch weichet, ihr tollen, vergeblichen Sorgen. Here the question posed is: at death you are called to go to Jesus – and what believer wouldn’t want to go? This is a virtuoso showpiece requiring detached, agile singing, skipping along the line and matching the articulation of the flute, which in this movement takes the role of some colorful bird flitting through a sunlit morning. Both Huttenlocher (Rilling) and Kooy (Herreweghe) are fabulous, providing lessons in how large voices can back off and allow the melisma to happen. There is also hope for the future in a live performance of this cantata recorded last October in NYC (someone in America is still programming and presenting this wonderful piece – yay! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcnihlW-y8Q), where the young American baritone David Tinervia gives an impressive reading.

At first glance this aria appears to be an A-B-A da capo form, but it is A-B-A'. Apparently Bach didn’t feel the bass had been sufficiently challenged in the first go-round and so he changed up the last part of the recapitulation! I am plotting to co-opt this aria for my own use – it’s convenient that the bass part taken up an octave lies perfectly for me; the text is not gender-specific; and the flute part can be extracted from the full score with minimal effort so the instrumentalist has a clear copy to read (interestingly, the autograph for transverse flute is almost perfectly legible as well). It will be a fun piece to work on this summer!

Bach develops the final chorale more fully than in some of the cantatas, and the text kept bringing to mind the words of the baritone solo in Deutsches Requiem: “Herr, lehre doch mich, das mein Leben ein End hat”.

The vocal score on IMSLP is derived from an old engraving where “they” have inserted a text underlay in modern typeface. This edition was sucked into one of the “CD Sheet Music” compilations that provide a cheap way to acquire music, but with no guarantee of quality. There are some problems with the text, both in alignment with the notes as well as typographical errors and incorrect (in some cases non-existent) words. For an edition like this, I go with what’s on the recording if there’s a question.

What an enjoyable contemplation of the hereafter this week has been. It would be interesting to try to find out if the paths of Halley, Neumann, and/or Bach crossed during their lives, although it’s unlikely they did. For the current purpose, it’s sufficient to understand the intellectual environment at the time Bach composed this (and many other) cantatas. Major scientific discoveries were imminent, that would forever alter the interpretation of religious texts. Very soon, men would rely on numbers and analysis more than Biblical concepts. But the composer knew that in the end all scientific theories are irrelevant – there is only the inevitability of death and an individual’s personal response to it. Bach’s unequivocal response in this cantata is that when it comes time to let go of the baggage of earthly existence, eternal joy will be there waiting for us. Who would want to miss out on that?

BWV 7 - Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam

Week 7 (12 February – 17 February 2013)

Recording: Helmuth Rilling, Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart/Bach-Collegium Stuttgart; Helen Watts, alto; Adalbert Kraus, tenor; Wolfgang Schöne, bass

The BWV 7 vocal score obtainable through IMSLP had been scanned out of order and at first I thought the end of the alto aria was missing – the melisma on verdammlich trailed off into oblivion. But all the music is there, and it was easy to re-arrange into the correct sequence. Wikipedia provided a link to an article in the Baltimore Sun a few years back that related a more interesting “missing pages” story. A NYC lawyer and Bach expert bought the manuscript of the organ part from this cantata at auction many years ago, knowing that several pages were missing. He had loved the cantata since hearing it while in college, and was in a financial position to acquire it when it came on the market (Bach autographs don’t go cheaply). In a remarkable series of events, a French attorney subsequently found the missing pages in a suburban Paris library. While the pages weren’t for sale, the American had a good perspective:

“Just pick it up and a funny electricity goes through your body. You are holding in your hands something Johann Sebastian Bach held in his…What I acquired was the privilege, the pleasure, and, above all, the responsibility, of being its custodian for a while. My father used to say '40 percent of something is better than 100 percent of nothing.' I have 75 percent [of this].”

The attorney is Teri Noel Towe, who among other pursuits hosts a classical music program on WPRB, Princeton University’s radio channel. In an interview for a documentary on Bach (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY5dv2bpRbE), he shows this manuscript, flipping through the pages gently and with obvious reverence.  But all I could think was – I can’t believe he’s handling it without gloves!

So what made Mr. Towe love this piece so much? Maybe he was a tenor, since the magnificent tenor aria is the keystone of this cantata. Even if you’re not a tenor, you will perk up your ears when you hear the almost modern-sounding sequence of minor-major-minor modulations that occurs throughout the piece in the orchestra, and in the vocal line at carefully selected moments, such as on the words erkauft and Zweifel. I haven’t heard anything similar in the Bach vocal works with which I’m familiar. The rolling triplets for the competing violins, as well as for the soloist, depict the miracle of baptism through the life-giving water: the washing away of sin; the connection with Christ (who receives the sacrament during his earthly time as a human); and the representation of the Trinity.

With skilled keyboard accompaniment, the aria and preceding secco recitative would make a bravura selection for church or recital for a bright, lyric tenor voice with flexibility. Adalbert Kraus, not a household name, does an admirable job for Rilling, making the most of those unique passages with exemplary diction and articulation. His is the kind of voice that “releases” creating a brilliance that works well in operatic repertoire. Both Kraus and Schöne had major opera careers in Europe, and not only their very disciplined and precise singing, but also their ability to interpret text theatrically comes through on this recording. I’m starting to be of the opinion that to be a great Bach singer you have to (a) play (or have played) an instrument – particularly a string instrument – to a high level of accomplishment and (b) be a great singing actor. It’s about the communication of the text – the cantatas were not ends in themselves, but supplements to the spoken word.

The direct address of the congregation through both recitatives and arias is especially obvious in BWV 7. The bass and alto arias function as mini-sermons to drive home the message. The bass aria is long for a church solo, and probably should remain within the cantata. The bass has perhaps a finer moment in his recitative, where at the moment he starts speaking Jesus’ words to the disciples, recitativo secco transitions to accompagnato. It’s a quintessential Bach detail.

The alto aria could be used as a church piece, and has several unique features. Consistent with its sermonizing text, there is no introduction: the concluding G major chord of the bass recitative provides your starting pitch for the statement “Menschen, glaubt doch dieser Gnade, dass ihr nicht in Sünde sterbt”. The brief orchestral passage that follows almost seems to function as an introduction for the aria proper. The tessitura is fairly low, even in modern pitch, but the music is idiomatic and flows easily. The big melisma comes on the word verdammlich, starting in M. 39; it can be broken for breath after the 4^th beat in M. 40 if needed. Be careful to use the correct vowel pronunciation of the syllable pfuhl – [u] (“pit” as in the “pit of Hell”) – not exactly a frequently-used word in German vocal repertoire – to differentiate it from pfühl – [y] (“cushion”). Helen Woods’ sound as represented on Rilling’s recording is not the most beautiful, but in repeated listening, I came to appreciate the emphatic interpretation – as mentioned, this is a sermon – as well as her breath control and support. It’s not a bad model, although a slightly faster tempo may be more comfortable for most singers.

The coro, vigorously performed on Rilling’s recording, is book-ended by a sinfonia that, disassembled, rearranged and transposed, provides the underlying material for Martin Luther’s verses. In these, the choral writing brings to life the washing away of sin, the drowning of death, and in a glorious modulation into the major key, the gaining of new life. To diagram this movement fully would be a several-hour project in itself – so that will have to wait.

I feel like I’m leaving much undone this week, but the more you dig into these works, the more there is to discover and explore. Unlike Mr. Towe, I will never own this or any other Bach manuscript, but just to have made its slight acquaintance is better than not to have encountered it at all.

BWV 6 - Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden

Week 6 (5 February - 10 February 2013) 

Recording: John Eliot Gardiner, Monteverdi Choir, and English Baroque Soloists; Bernarda Fink, alto; Steve Davislim, tenor; Julian Clarkson, bass

BWV 6 is sometimes referred to as the “Emmaus” cantata. The overarching concept stems from the meeting of the disciples with the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus (near Jerusalem). The disciples do not know the identity of the stranger they meet, but nevertheless they welcome him into their home “as even falls”. The Biblical text describes literal darkness, but the cantata is based on the exploration of metaphorical darkness.

If you sing this cantata, one skill you will soon perfect is the placement of the consonants [bl] before the beat. The opening chorus contains many repetitions of the phrase Bleib bei uns, and those words alternately serve as poignant plea, humble request, and righteous demand (as in the central fugal section which is anchored by the cantus firmus-like call of “Bleib bei uns” in voices and instruments). Gardiner’s version is more “baroque” in style, but I love what Rilling does with the opening phrase of this chorus – intensifying and connecting the two repetitions of “Bleib bei uns” that occur in the first four measures to immediately create a sense of urgency to the people’s pleading. This fairly short chorus has enough variety (with challenging parts for all voices) to stand on its own, although without orchestra it would also provide a substantial challenge for the organist!

The cantata includes a lovely, short (approximately 3 ½ minutes) aria for alto. Although the obbligato is written for oboe da caccia, this piece would work well as a church solo with organ accompaniment only. The quality of the soloists, acoustics, and cohesion in Gardiner’s “Cantata Pilgrimage” recordings can vary, but the rendition of BWV 6, performed at St. John’s in London, is very respectable, and has an excellent alto soloist in Bernarda Fink. The aria is not as easy as it first appears, particularly with finding places to breathe that don’t interrupt the flow – although note that Ms. Fink takes the time needed at advantageous locations such as M. 65 where the accompaniment has a well-placed quarter rest. Sometimes they just have to wait for you!

This aria is a very useful exercise for developing skills in Baroque ornamentation and trills. The Rilling version of this cantata with Carolyn Watkinson is done at a slower tempo in modern pitch making it easier to follow for study purposes. Although her voice has a larger vibrato than is generally accepted in this music today, she is very meticulous with ornamentation. And as with the opening coro, the alto soloist gets many opportunities to practice good diction with “Bleib, ach bleibe unser Licht” the central phrase of the B section of the aria.

Although text repetition is the rule in Baroque music, looking at the manner in which Bach sets this aria shows the amount of thought behind his approach. The opening phrase “Hochgelobter Gottessohn” is repeated twice, using the same music (good news for the singer, who once having mastered it gets multiple duty from it). The next line of text is also repeated twice, with slightly different music. Then arises the interesting question: why did Bach only use the next phrase “dass wir itzt vor deinem Thron” once? He sets the words to the music used for the opening text of the aria, and a lesser composer might have continued re-using what was done before. But perhaps Bach felt that the direct address to divinity needed the emphasis of repetition, while the description of the action (“we come now before your throne”) is just a bridge to what occurs there (“eine Bitte niederlegen” – “to offer up a request”, which phrase receives two repetitions, each with its own distinct music). There is just never anything casual about the workmanship of these pieces.

Gardiner’s performance uses the soprano section for the third movement chorale, Ach bleib bei uns, and this seems to make sense given the tessitura of the vocal part and the instrumentation for the accompaniment. The chorale calls for a “violoncello piccolo”, a shadowy Baroque stringed instrument about which not much seems to be known. If this movement is done with a modern cello, a small group of sopranos would better balance the instrument and continuo while also providing more depth of sound without introducing vibrato. For a soprano soloist, it is difficult to achieve the weight to balance with the instruments without making a soloistic sound – as beautifully as Edith Wiens sings on Rilling’s recording, it just does not sound like the solo voice belongs here, unless of course the entire cantata is being performed by a solo quartet only (and it has been recorded that way).

The tenor aria is also a short A-B piece and it is built around a wonderful violin solo. Rilling’s concertmaster plays with an insistent pressure to create a horizontal tension that mirrors the tenor’s “[dass wir nicht] auf der Sündenwegen gehen”. There are some fun licks in here, including some word-painting melismas (“scheinen”, “meinen”), but this aria needs the violin if you want to perform it.

In thinking about what Bach’s solo vocalists had to contend with, not only musically but in simply trying to read the handwritten music every week, I did a little investigation to get an idea how far we’ve come. The archive at www.bach-digital.de provides the fascinating capability to view many of Bach’s extant manuscripts (extreme close-up is possible for the really serious researcher). Here is a snippet from the alto aria Hochgelobter Gottessohn showing (top to bottom): J.S. Bach’s manuscript; the Bach Gesellschaft Ausgabe edition by Breitkopf & Härtel (1851 – engraved plate, retaining the alto clef notation); and the piano reduction by Bernhard Todt based on the BGA full score, also published by Breitkopf & Härtel (1890 – engraved plate). Take a look at the evolution of legibility and consider how good we have it:

The third movement was later used by Bach as the basis for an organ chorale (one of the Schübler Chorales, BWV 649). So in a quest to check out the organ music to understand just how closely the two versions are related, there was a slight detour which, with the inevitability this type of project tends to have, led me to the recordings of German organist Helmut Walcha. These will soon be giving me some listening pleasure when I’m in a “non-cantata” mood.

Blind for his entire adult life, Walcha committed Bach’s organ music – all of it – to memory, learning each voice individually by listening to someone play it. He is quoted as having said:

“Bach opens a vista to the universe. After experiencing him, people feel there is meaning to life after all.”