BWV 40 - Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes

Week 40 (1 July – 6 July 2014)

Recording: Ton Koopman, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir; Bogna Bartosz, alto; Jörg Dürmüller, tenor; Klaus Mertens, bass

Due to the “evolution” of this project’s schedule, I have been enjoying “Christmas in July” for the last couple weeks with this peppy cantata, one of an impressive set of new compositions, including the original Eb-major version of the Magnificat, written for Bach’s first Christmas season in Leipzig (1723). For some reason, BWV 40 isn’t performed at the holidays much anymore, even though nothing says Christmas like the devil, his reptilian emissary, and eternal damnation! Not that this cantata threatens fire and brimstone – the references serve to illustrate that Christ’s appearance in human form provided the ultimate victory of good over evil. The cantata texts hearken back to the most fundamental, black-and-white meaning of the nativity, pre-dating Victorian sentimentality and 20^th-century commercialization.

The scripture used for the opening chorus is not from the Gospel of John, but from I John, a letter recommending to the faithful the “practice of righteousness” (as the chapter is titled in the new KJV). Written long after the events of that first Christmas, this text conveys the sturdy conviction of unquestioned faith, rather than the awestruck revelation of a witnessed miracle. Bach has artfully matched the sequencing of voices and rhythmic structure to capture this mood of confident assertion, while using only the same two lines of scripture in each portion of the resulting coro. Philipp Spitta makes the remarkable observation, “For novelty, boldness, and breadth of structure this is far superior to all the choruses of the Magnificat…”! That comment could serve as fodder for quite a few late-night debates, but let’s just say that sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

The chorus consists of a central fugue book-ended by homophonic declamations. After a festive instrumental opening, the A section builds to four measures of contrapuntal climax, focused on the word zerstöre. At M. 25 the alto line is “destroyed” through the notated rhythm and its interaction with the hemiolas in the soprano and tenor voices. (A similar broken, or interrupted, line will subsequently occur in the tenor aria.) A rhythmic transition (M. 29) gives the effect of half-time without changing tempo, and the fugue begins rather gently. As the vocal lines become more complex, the destruction of evil is once again emphasized through the melismatic treatment of zerstöre until a triumphant resolution at M. 64 ushers in the recapitulation. Bach then ends the movement by bringing voices and instruments together on a bright F major chord, without any orchestral postlude.

This opening movement provides an excellent opportunity to wade incautiously into the great Bach tempo debate, and I hazard it only because I found it interesting that here two of the leading exponents of period performance arrived at opposite conclusions. Overall, Koopman’s performance of the cantata was too fast for my taste, with this coro clocking in at 3 ½ minutes, crossing the finish line well ahead of the rest of the field, and almost a full minute ahead of Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Gardiner and Rotzsch arrive somewhere in the middle: both these renditions unfold at a natural and unforced tempo that Bach could have reasonably approached with his available singers and instrumentalists.

A comparison of the tempi in the tenor recitative is also instructive. Koopman sails through it – I wouldn’t say the meaning of the words is neglected, but there is simply no comparison with the carefully thought out approach on Rotzsch’s performance with Peter Schreier. Of course, Rotzsch was working with a once in a generation singer who was already conducting these works in his own right. But if you need convincing, just listen to M.3 on both recordings: the apparently simple and obvious device of an ascending scale matched to bestrahlt. One is fine baroque styling, the other is the light of the world encircling the globe. And in M.8, if the tempo is too fast, you can completely miss the lovely detail in the continuo at the word bedenkt.

The forceful bass aria is fun to hear and sing, but probably would surprise a modern congregation if programmed for an Advent Sunday service – or maybe for any Sunday service. Technically, the music is not difficult, requiring little agility, but the aria benefits from a dramatic approach, and a soloist with a brightness in the top register (although the low notes are needed, too). The trampling of the snake connects this Christmastide cantata back to the prophesy in Genesis 3:15: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman,/and between your offspring and hers;/he will crush your head,/and you will strike his heel.”

The alto has a brief accompagnato recitative that completes this reference. It’s a strange thing to sing – where you think there should be fireworks there is instead the gently rocking string accompaniment which leaves no room for rubato. Still, the words are important and should not be thrown away, and this movement was one where I liked Koopman’s tempo, which allowed for quiet reflection: a Christmas lullaby.

The tenor aria is all about joy but Bach bedeviled his soloist with the virtuosic demands. I can imagine the nervous soloist standing up to sing, as the congregation settles in cheerful expectation. The horns enter with jubilant flourishes in the introductory material, further raising the stakes, while the unfortunate tenor is cursing Bach under his breath and sweating bullets before embarking on his 50-odd measure melisma. One of the piéces de resistance of the Bach tenor repertoire. In Jörg Dürmüller, Koopman has a rarity – a voice that comes naturally to the florid music, easily rocketing through the endless sixteenth-note patterns without apparent effort. This requires a certain placement of the voice superimposed on technical ability, you are either born with it or not – no amount of practice can produce this if the basic equipment is lacking. In contrast, Schreier is not as effortless, but sings commandingly at full voice. He does not take any shortcuts, and triumphs through sheer will and vocal discipline.

Three chorales provide structure and grounding for the cantata, almost giving it the character of a “lessons and carols” service – although this architecture also aligns with Bach’s large-scale choral works. The texts represent the work of three early 17^th-century literary figures: first, Kaspar Füger’s hymn Wir Christenleut, which uses a melody of Johann Crüger that Bach later used in the Weihnachts-Oratorium. The second, central chorale invokes the ancient superstition of shaking the head to shake the devil off one’s back, with a wonderful onomatopoeic effect provided by the Amsterdam Baroque Choir (however, Rotzsch’s Thomanerchor one-ups them with a highly-idiomatic emphasis on Kopf, and goes on from there to own the piece). This less well-known verse of Paul Gerhardt’s Schwing dich auf zu deinem Gott still appeared in unaltered form in 19^th-century German-American hymnals. Lastly, for a joyous ending, Bach selected Christian Keimann’s Freuet euch, ihr Christen alle, which employs a tune by Keimann’s musical colleague in Zittau, Andreas Hammerschmidt.

As you begin to dig deeper, you see how many threads have been brought together here – theological, literary, folk traditions – all woven into a tapestry by Bach’s genius. Tracing those threads back to their respective spindles is a fascinating, but time-consuming labor – for instance, despite an hour’s searching of various digital library collections from Stockholm to Berlin to Atlanta, I was unable to find an illustration of the relevant volume of Hammerschmidt’s Musicalische Andachten: so an excerpt of the aforementioned Gerhardt hymn from the old Lutheran Gesangbuch will have to do.

Paul Gerhardt's Schwing dich auf zu deinem Gott in a 19th-Century Hymnal

 

Through repeated listenings, the Rotzsch recording, with Schreier at his vocal and interpretive prime, and the estimable Siegfried Lorenz calling out the serpent, stood out not just for these fine soloists, but for the overall drama that the performing forces brought to this cantata. It is easy to imagine, listening to the Wie Christenleut choral, and the choir’s repetition of the word Sünd on the modulation that begins the second measure, that one is back in Leipzig in 1723, hearing exactly what the master intended. This is the sound of a congregation of believers intoning a hymn melody that it knows well, to words of lifelong familiarity. Again and again, this sense of authenticity – in an experiential sense, if not, perhaps, a musicological one – permeates this performance. The performers make a case not just for this cantata as a work of art, but as an essential part of the Advent and Christmas worship sequence. Maybe it’s time to shake things up a bit, program BWV 40 this December, and nearly three hundred years after Bach showed the way, go back to the basics of what Christmas is about.