Did Bach ever visit Switzerland? It’s doubtful, although history records he was well-travelled within his own “country” (Germany was not a unified country during his lifetime). Supposedly he made a 250-mile journey on foot to study with Buxtehude – probably not an unusual venture in those days, but remarkable to us today. He certainly would have seen much of his own land and its people. He was one of them, from beginning to end: a devout boy from a working class family, not a son of the nobility. The family trade just happened to be music. And a trade it was, as evidenced by the continuous compositional demands as well as music directing and teaching, not to mention familial responsibilities, Bach undoubtedly had very little, if any, opportunity for leisure travel.
I have been lucky enough to visit Switzerland several times, and to hear many fantastic concerts there. The main Bach event of my visit last week to the Lucerne Easter Festival was a performance of the St. John Passion by some authoritative performers: the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, led by the dean of the “British school” of historically-informed performance, John Eliot Gardiner. The excellent acoustics of the Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Luzern (KKL) enabled the relatively small forces to sing and play within their normal dynamic levels even in a large, non-Baroque space. The oratorio was presented without intermission, which sustains the dramatic tension and arc of the narrative even as it avoids the distraction of a return to the secular world when the audience gets up mid-stream to return phone calls and have a drink. It’s obviously a challenge to do this, for both musicians and listeners, but so worthwhile. Gardiner’s performance kept this listener engaged without any loss of momentum – although I did detect some of the audience getting a bit restless during the last few movements.
The tuning of the various Baroque instruments at the opening of the concert ushered you into the tonal universe of the composition, and the aspirated “h” of the choir’s opening exclamation “Herr!” was unforgettable and set the stage for all that followed. The singing and playing, while firmly within what we think of as period performance, did not lack interpretive drama. This was particularly demonstrated by baritone Peter Harvey, who was called upon to perform the contrasting “roles” of Pontius Pilate, in recitative, and a nameless follower of Christ in his arias.
One treat was hearing a real oboe da caccia (in the soprano aria Zerfließe, mein Herze). Recordings – at least on my audio system – can’t capture its unique timbre. Overall, the period instruments in the KKL acoustic provided a warm, rich sound while not losing their character.
I left the concert thinking that while I didn’t always agree with some of the artistic choices, I had heard in person the opinion of one of the greatest modern Bach experts as to Bach’s intentions when he composed the work in 1724 (the original version was performed, not later emended editions). And how often do you get to do that? It’s an experience I’ll always treasure.
If not for being already booked at the SJP, I would have been able to actually hear a cantata (BWV 131). The J.S. Bach-Stiftung (http://www.bachstiftung.ch/en/), head-quartered in St. Gallen (about an hour northeast of Zürich) has embarked on a vast enterprise: the performance and audio/video recording of all the cantatas over a period of 25 years! They began in 2006 and the process works like this: a cantata is prepared and performed on a monthly basis, with the concert consisting of a performance of the complete cantata, a lecture relating to the cantata, and a repeat performance. Since the cantatas are so short, this serves the purpose of filling up the evening as well as providing the audience a chance to digest and re-visit a (typically) unfamiliar work. It also rewards the hard work of the young professional singers who are engaged to do the concerts (additional goals of the project are to provide significant performance opportunities for them, as well as to make this music interesting and accessible to a young audience who perhaps can better relate to it when seeing their peers on stage).
Poster for BWV 131 Performance by J.S. Bach-Stiftung, St. Gallen, Switzerland
Several recordings of the series have already been released and are available both on the website and on amazon.com (search under J.S. Bach-Stiftung, or Rudolf Lutz, the conductor for this project). The music is available as MP3 downloads as well as in CD format. Examples from performances are available on the site and on YouTube.
Unfortunately, this very noble endeavor may not be insulated from the financial upheaval that has affected so many arts organizations: I first learned of their project from a recent New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/world/europe/swiss-city-fears-for-cultural-legacy-in-wake-of-a-banks-fall.html?_r=0. Considerable resources need to be committed to this type of project, and when talking about such a sustained period of time, even the most optimistic supporter has to admit this will be a difficult goal to attain in the current economic environment.
And it begs the question: is there a need for another recorded Bach cantata cycle? Or one done in this manner? Those are valid questions when there are already superb complete cycles by Rilling, Koopman, and Harnoncourt/Leonhardt, using world-class soloists, with partial cycles by Richter, Gardiner, Suzuki, and Herreweghe. The St. Gallen project, like those others, will utilize a changing body of performers, and will be a product of a unique time, place, and philosophy. Consequently, these recordings will provide another educated and considered perspective – and for this, especially for Bach’s music, there should always be room.
Now that I know about the J.S. Bach-Stiftung, and have visited beautiful St. Gallen, my goal is to hear one of their performances – sometime in the next (20) years!
No matter where I travelled in Switzerland, I bumped into J.S.: on the streets of St. Gallen, where the advertising columns were plastered with the Stiftung’s poster (shown above and illustrating their very unified marketing concept); in the St. Laurenzin Kirche (the Reformed Evangelical church in St. Gallen) where a display on the history of the church included a segment on music, with a prominent place given to the master; on lovely flyers posted in various cities for performances of the B minor Mass, to be presented in the pretty lakeside town of Romanshorn and at the Fraumünster in Zürich over Easter weekend; and in Lucerne, where at the Hans Erni Museum, the catalog raisonné of this prominent Swiss artist’s lithographs included an interpretation of the well-known Haussmann portrait. And of course, at the KKL.
Hans Erni (Swiss b. 1909), Johann Sebastian Bach (1980, lithograph)
I’m grateful for all these memorable encounters and hope that the little bit of cantata work I have done to date helped inform my appreciation of the SJP. But time marches on, VACATION is over and it’s time to get back to work. In fact, it’s time for BWV 12!
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