Week 12 (26 March – 31 March 2013)
Recording: Helmuth Rilling, Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart/Bach-Collegium Stuttgart; Helen Watts, alto; Adalbert Kraus, tenor; Wolfgang Schöne, bass
A
little serendipity this week, as the best-known segment of BWV 12 provided the
basis for a far more famous movement of the Mass
in B minor. The opening chorus Weinen,
Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (WKSZ) was later used by Bach as inspiration for the Crucifixus, the powerful turning point of
the Mass. My church choir sang the
latter as part of our Maundy Thursday service, and it made a comparison of the
two choral pieces a natural focus for this week’s comments.
Both
versions use 3/2 meter. In the E minor Crucifixus,
a 4-measure introduction establishes the incessant, throbbing quarter note in
the continuo which persists through to the end of the piece, whereas the F
minor BWV 12 coro begins with a very
still and soft vocal entrance following the mournful opening sinfonia. The continuo beats the half
note, with the strings and bassoon playing only on the first and third beat, so
that the weak second beat creates a “sobbing” instrumental effect mirroring the
lamentation in the text.
The
Crucifixus consists of one unbroken musical
idea – derived from the A section of WKSZ,
which is in da capo form, A-B-A. The
B section of WKSZ is a wonderful
exercise in counterpoint revolving around the verb tragen (to bear, or carry). For once, I completely disagree with Sir
Hubert, who says of this chorus that “the middle portion is by no means so
impressive as the first…and the deep feeling expressed in the first part makes
it unsuitable to be given again da capo”.
The function of this music in the musical and philosophical context of the
smaller-scale BWV 12 is considerably different than when it occurs in variant
form in the Mass. This alone warrants
a different treatment. Bach wrote this cantata for Jubilate Sunday, the third
Sunday after Easter, and the coro
leads into a sequence of arias expanding on the theme of the resurrection, showing both
contrition and hope. Although to our modern sensibility, this chorus is
more suited to the pre-Easter season, it’s certainly worth doing, middle
portion and all.
For
the Mass, Bach introduced intervallic
and rhythmic changes to intensify the mood and accommodate the Latin text. And
in the last several measures of Crucifixus,
the flutes and strings are dropped, the voices and continuo remain, creating a
hushed effect that makes the transition to Et
resurrexit all the more powerful. With these subtle but crucial changes,
Bach was able to adapt his music for a Latin text with different meaning but
with similar emotional content.
The
text for this cantata doesn’t blaze any literary trails, and some of the
language is archaic or poetical: you have to be careful with using literal
translations from a modern dictionary. The texts come from multiple sources,
predominantly Weimar attorney-poet Salomon Franck (1659-1725), who wrote
several cantata text cycles during the period 1714-1717. Samuel Rodigast is
known today for the chorale which concludes BWV 12, Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan. This tune and text will re-appear
later in the project, as Bach used them for the basis of three complete
cantatas (BWV 98, 99, and 100) during the Leipzig years.
As
indicated, BWV 12 dates from Bach’s Weimar period, and its structure is
different than the typical Leipzig cantata, for instance in WKSZ there are three arias (alto, bass,
tenor) and no connecting recitatives to supply a narration or sermon. The only
recitative (for alto) occurs after the choral movement, and tellingly it is also the only place
in the cantata that uses words taken directly from scripture. The alto aria in
C minor is long but powerful, and is the best of the three solos. It could be
called the “[k]” aria since it requires so much repetition of that consonant: Kreuz, Krone, Kampf, Kleinod – when studying
this piece the singer has ample opportunity to work on diction so that the
sometimes troublesome sound will be heard clearly by the audience.
Bach
does something interesting in the B section of this aria, which would typically
consist only of the next several lines of text from Franck’s verse. Instead, the
composer chose to intermingle the new lines with repetition of the primary words of the A
section. I’m still cogitating on why he did this, because textually it doesn’t
seem to make sense.
Taken
together with the recitative, this movement would make a challenging selection
for a recital. In its original A-B-A-C-A-B-A da capo form it is too long for church use, although it could
conceivably be shortened by omitting the last B-A without committing heresy. But
it does require an oboe soloist: the instrumental part is elaborate and
intricately intertwined with the vocal line – a keyboard adaptation won’t do
here.
The
prominence of the oboe in this cantata requires an exceptional player if the
work is programmed. The opening sinfonia
has been recorded several times on oboe solo albums, and as mentioned the alto
aria provides another, equally soloistic opportunity.
The
short bass aria with its straight-forward text could be extracted for church
use or as a study piece. The tenor aria is definitely not a training piece and
is only for a singer with mature technique. In this aria, the master made a
characteristically brilliant touch by laying in a trumpet obbligato, which is the chorale tune for Jesu, meine Freude. As the singer exhorts us to keep faith and hope
in the future, the unspoken words of the chorale (words that would have been
well-known to Bach’s congregation) emphasize the rewards of that faithfulness.
The
first four measures of the continuo part of the WKSZ coro were used by Franz Liszt in two keyboard works: a short
prelude, and the large-scale Variations on
Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen where he created a typically brilliant and
virtuosic piece. Except for the last page, which is a big finish in
mid-19th-century style, it’s a remarkably insightful and fertile creation.
Both pieces can be performed on either piano or organ, and there are many
recordings available (I’m grateful to this project for re-introducing me to
Alfred Brendel’s vast and important piano discography which includes an excellent interpretation of the Variations).
Franz Liszt’
Starting Point for a Keyboard Showpiece
Another
bit of serendipity occurred as I started drafting these notes. I turned on the Metropolitan
Opera broadcast for background music, and recognized the Act III prelude of La Traviata. Suddenly, as I was looking
at my BWV 12 score, I heard that plaintive, descending half-step motive coming
over the airwaves as the prelude ended and the long recitative section began. I
don’t know if Verdi ever heard the Mass,
or this cantata, but there’s no denying it’s there. Perhaps it’s eternal recurrence:
as Verdi depicted the tragic death of his consumptive heroine a hundred years
after Bach’s death, that sequence still characterized profound human suffering,
even as it continues to resonate with us today.
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