Recording (BWV 30): John Eliot Gardiner, Monteverdi Choir/English Baroque Soloists; Joanne Lunn, soprano; Wilke te Brummelstroete, alto; Paul Agnew, tenor; Dietrich Henschel, bass
Recording (BWV 30a): Helmuth Rilling, Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart/Bach-Collegium Stuttgart; Christiane Oelze, soprano; Ingeborg Danz, alto; Marcus Ullmann, tenor; Andreas Schmidt, bass
From
the first swinging measures of the opening chorus, I knew this would be a
particularly enjoyable week. When producing festive music, Bach invested it
with an innocent joyousness that foreshadows Mozart and Schubert. Unfettered by
any of the burdens he undoubtedly bore, these pieces rise lightly and buoyantly,
dispelling the gloom.
The provenance of the cantata provides one key to
understanding that buoyancy. The music for BWV 30 was composed for a secular
occasion less than a year before its “premiere” for St. John’s Day in June
1738. I wasn’t quite sure how to approach this first encounter with a pair of
cantatas, one derived from the other. Not as simple as learning the music for
BWV 30 and reading the text for BWV 30a as an afterthought – that method showed
only a small part of the picture. Ultimately, starting at the beginning, with
the original setting, was the best strategy – although it took longer than
planned!
BWV 30a celebrated the ascendancy of Johann Christian von Hennicke, a self-made
man (Albert Schweitzer refers to him as a “parvenu”) to the landed gentry as
lord of the manor of Wiederau, a Baroque castle that still stands on the banks
of the Elster River southwest of Leipzig. The cantata, Angenehmes Wiederau, utilizes a text by Picander (Henrici) which
most commentators indicate was an attempt by the poet to ingratiate himself with
the powers that had commissioned the project. Modern readers may find the words
laughable (especially in English translation), but the libretto is probably
typical for this type of occasion. Great literature wasn’t wanted; rather,
conventional expressions of good will, gratitude, and homage to the new
resident – hence the description Huldigungskantate.
Schloss Wiederau
What was wanted –
expected and demanded – was original music being heard for the first time. It
wouldn’t do at all for the attendees to recognize a tune they had just heard in
church the week before. Part of the explanation for the huge number of cantatas
generated by Bach’s contemporaries Telemann and Graupner is the expectation by
their aristocratic employers for an endless supply of “new” music. Quality was
a lesser concern: the goal was to have something uniquely theirs each and every
time a musical entertainment was provided. For BWV 30a, Bach penned severable
unique and memorable tunes. The breezy (but intricate) opening chorus is one of
them, and with a sure theatrical instinct, Bach used it to book-end the
cantata, changing the text but retaining the music unaltered. I bet the
audience left humming this catchy tune – exactly what the composer intended!
Technically
a dramma per musica (a verse text
specifically written to be set to music), the Wiederau cantata specifies
“roles”: Time (Soprano), Happiness (Alto - !), the River Elster (Tenor -?),
Fate (Bass - of course). Since Wiederau was not a sacred venue, one wonders if
Bach employed female singers (the tessitura of the alto aria suggests it was
written for a female voice). Christoph Wolff indicates that members of Bach’s
Collegium Musicum (a mix of students, talented amateurs, court musicians, and
guest artists) were employed for this type of concert, as they were for the
weekly public concerts held at Zimmerman’s Coffeehouse in Leipzig. Certainly at
an important, “high-visibility” event like the Hennicke installation, Bach
would have recruited his best “team”. Each soloist had significant music, both
in recitative and aria, and also needed to be comfortable with the (minimal)
acting requirements. With the exception of the tenor aria, the solo material
all carries over to BWV 30; however, the context is usually completely opposite
to the earlier version.
BWV 30a was probably intended to be performed keine Pause, whereas the church cantata
is split into two sections, the first concluded by a chorale that is absent
from the predecessor work. The bass receives the best material in both settings,
with a substantial aria in each part of the cantata. His first, florid aria has
a similar theme for both cantatas: the birth of St. John in BWV 30, and
Hennicke’s arrival in Wiederau in BWV 30a. This challenging aria requires a vocal
lightness to negotiate the many sixteenth-note triplet passages with grace, but
for the right singer it’s a terrific recital or service offering. The second
aria is actually more dramatic in the setting intended for church: the sinner
renounces anything that leads him away from God, whereas at Wiederau there is a
milder, general promise that Fate will uphold Hennicke and his progeny.
Overall,
John Eliot Gardiner’s recording doesn’t leave much to be desired, and in his
bass soloist, Dietrich Henschel, he has a fine singing actor as well as singer,
who captures the contrasting moods. While his voice can occasionally sound
pinched (perhaps a function of a vocal technique that also enables precision
and agility in the florid passages), at his best Henschel channels the subtlety
and coloration of Fischer-Dieskau.
Gardiner deems the alto aria to be “the pick
of them all – an enchanting gavotte”, and refers to the “boogieing triplets”
and the “sheer cheek and elegant cool” of the aria, which is indeed an unique
tune and one that is highly enjoyable to sing. Following two repeated 8-bar instrumental
motives, the alto enters with the first of four variations on the opening stanza
of text. The second stanza gets the “cool” setting (see M. 57 et. seq.) and
seems in danger of veering off into another century before being reined back in
at M. 61. A lot of fun – but there is a danger of becoming too vertical, not
to mention too precious, particularly since the text for BWV 30 – summoning
sinners to grace – is not exactly lightweight. Perhaps to reinforce the
difference from its secular version, the tempo chosen in at least two cases –
by Richter with Anna Reynolds as soloist, and by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in an
Emmanuel Church recording – is extremely slow – almost in half-time compared to
the lilting dance tempo employed on most recordings. The technical difficulties
in the aria center around phrasing – it’s a good study in managing quick
breaths without interrupting the flow of the line – and text: one problem for
English speakers is the phrase und
schreit, which occurs repeatedly.
The BWV 30 aria is a popular choice for
Bach solo discs– e.g., Anne Sophie von Otter. However, for recital
purposes, the original version could be considered – it’s no different than any
opera or oratorio aria. While there does not appear to be a public domain piano-vocal
score for BWV 30a, IMSLP has the Breitkopf & Härtel continuo-vocal score so it is possible to line in the alternate
text. Note that the aria as written for BWV 30 is not a carbon copy of the
secular version: while the text-music match is amazingly well-preserved, there
are a couple rhythmic changes to accommodate the stresses of the new words, and in some
instances the precise connections could not be retained. For Wiederau, M. 50
and 52 began with triplet scales on the noun Fülle and the adverb reichlich.
In the church cantata, the word-painting had to be abandoned: the music sets ihr and auf.
The soprano aria begins with a figure reminiscent of the
opening of the tenor aria in BWV 7, an earlier cantata for the same liturgical
date (Birthday of John the Baptist). But the resemblance is momentary, and the
aria goes off in its own unique direction. If used in recital, this piece would
benefit from keeping its recitative, which has some nice
poetry (for Picander) that is similar in both the Wiederau and sacred settings.
An enjoyable
moment unique to BWV 30a occurs in the last recitative which employs all four
soloists in turn and then as a quartet. The soprano leads off with a colorful vocal
and instrumental depiction of lightening and tongues of fire that leaps off the
page.
"Kein Blitz, kein Feuerstrahl" for Wiederau - Only in the Music for BWV 30a
In the Wiederau version, the tenor has a brief and effective
aria in character as the river. With a couple minor changes (for example, delete
Hennickes and substitute Gottes as the reference for the Namen being invoked), this is a tuneful piece without any huge difficulties that would make a nice recital piece.
The tenor gets short-changed in the church version, with the master providing only
a recitative, but there is possibly a reference therein to the earlier work, der angenehme Tag – the delightful day.
It’s
delightful to imagine Bach and his musicians travelling down to Wiederau with
their music and fancy-dress clothes; setting up for their concert; and performing
as the new owner, his friends and his hangers-on sat around the schloss listening to the “world
premiere” (possibly very uncomfortable in their elaborate attire on a September
evening). Food and drink were undoubtedly plentiful, and the evening was
probably a great occasion in the tiny burg, one talked about long after it
concluded.
If I had unlimited time and a travel budget for this project, I might
try to unearth a contemporary account of the event (unlikely – but you never
know what diligent research might yield…). There is not even an artist’s impression of that gathering. But some fragile
remnants from that era have survived: examples of Hennicke’s Meissen porcelain place
settings (that include his newly-minted coat of arms) can be found online – a Hennicke
spoon is even in the collection of the Met Museum. Perhaps the plate below was
part of the service the night Bach premiered BWV 30a?
Plate from the Hennicke Meissen Service c. 1740
So much has been
lost – but we must be grateful for what remains. The original cantata and it’s
“protégé”, most of all. And Schloss Wiederau somehow survived two centuries of
declining fortunes, WWII, and Communism: it appears to be in the process of
restoration, including its stunning trompe
l’oeil painted ceiling. The manor is part of the “Bach tour”, and this
beautiful area of Saxony looks like it is worth a visit! Maybe next year…
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