Bach Log: The Leper

Our sixth night on the Bach Cantatas, this one comprising BWVs 72, Alles nur nach Gottes Willen (Everything following God's will alone);  73, Herr, wie du willt, so schicks mit mir (Lord, do with me as You will);  111, Was mein Gott will, das g'scheh allzeit (What my God wants, may it always happen); and 156, Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe (I am standing with one foot in the grave).*   The common theme here is submission and stoic (yes?) acceptance of some pretty grim stuff--a pervasive theme is the healing of the leper.  Makes you wonder what the audience had experienced during the week which they are now encouraged to interpret through music and Biblical text.   There is always, of course, the promise of succor from God; or more precisely, Jesus: he will remember you, he will provide.  Mrs. B, who grew up Catholic in a German-American household, remarks on how much the theology reminds her of her own beginnings and wonders whether the Lutherans and the Catholics were closer on points of doctrine than the Great and Good in her own life instructed her to believe.

But for solace, forget about Jesus and consider the oboe: so frequently we find it called into service to take the rough edges off the text.  I wonder did Bach invent this use of the oboe, or is he merely deploying a still devised by his predecessors?

The selection does include the  most dramatic and dynamic chorus we've heard so far--from BWV 72, "Alles nur nach Gottes Willen:"  Here's the whole of BWV 72, from the Bach Collegium Japan:

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*And yes, I see I really do need to standardize my form of citation. If I'm conscientious, I'll go back and try to make the earlier entries consistent this format.

Bach Log: Baby Steps, and a Discovery

Another evening of Bach Cantatas, and I've already lost (=am too lazy to) count exactly how many we've done.  But we're at the second Sunday of Epiphany.  That would be BWV 155 ("Mein Gott, wie lang, ach lange?"), BWV 3 ("Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid!"--same as BWV 58) and BWV 3 ("Meine Seufer, meine Tränen"), and I'm taking baby steps at getting some sense of what to look for, what they are about and suchlike.  We note in passing that most of the CDs in the house bearing the label "cantatas" are in fact selections from cantatas, not the whole thing.  And I'm beginning to sense that (duh!) there is a reason why a chorale is put next to a recitative and so forth.

This evening also marked my discovery of the work of the late Craig Smith, who must already be a legend among serious Bach enthusiasts: Wiki says he "is considered a seminal figure in Boston's Baroque music revival of the 1970s," Emmanuel Music, he Boston Baroque music cooperative. I find him now in his avatar as annotator/commentator of Emmanuel's cantata series and it is pretty clear these are going to be indispensable.   I might have figured out on my own, for example, that the orchestration of the tenor aria in BWV 13 is "interesting and cool … Two recorders pitched quite high play a poignant duet above a meandering and expressive oboe da caccia line and an active bass."   But I certainly didn't have the breadth to see that As fascinating as this work is. ... it must be counted as a peculiarity. Bach goes to such extreme lengths to save an unsaveable text that he has written something in the end that is more odd than touching."

Bach Log: Epiphany

Tonight's selection comprised music for the first Sunday of the new year (BWV 153, 58) and also for Epiphany (BWV 65, 123), of which I'd say the clear winner is BWV 123, Liebster Immanuel, Herzog der Frommen, "dearest Emmanuel, duke of the pious."  As a commentator says, "Herzog=duke" seems an odd choice, perhaps best savored in a foreign language.  The remarkable part is the bass aria, "Lass, o Welt, mich aus Verachtungnwhich," "leave me, world, for though dost scorn me."*  Gardiner calls it "one of the loneliest arias Bach ever wrote" (sic, not "loveliest?").  The aria's austere dignity is surrounded/festooned/ornamented/complemented by flute and continuo which Gardiner encounters as ""some consoling guardian angel."  Right enough as long as you leave it in the abstract.  Once you start to think about it, you find yourself imagining some hitherto undocumented Disney character and the effect is, shall we say, not enhanced.  There, I told you  not to think of an undocumented Disney character.

Here's the aria** (oddly, YouTube appears not to identify the musicians):

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*Translation by one Z. Philip Ambrose, hitherto unknown to me, seemingly a remarkable man about whom I must say more later.

**And now that I listen to it, I realize this version is not nearly as Disneyfied as the Gardiner.

Bach Log: New Year's

'Twas New Year's Eve at Chez Underbelly last night, at least according to the Lutheran calendar implemented in John Eliot Gardiner's rendering of the Bach Cantatas.  That would be four items: BWVs 143, 41,16 and 171.     Apparently some critics suspect that Bach many not have written 143, and I tend to suspect they might be onto something: to my untutored ear, it just doesn't sound Bachy enough.    BWV 41 strikes a celebratory mood, with  a lot of trumpets: there's also a remarkable obligatto wherein a violoncello converses with the tenor recitative.  Of BWV 16, Spitta says it is close to the spirit of Telemann, but that "Telemann would have had difficulty even attempting to imitate what Bach accomplished here."  BWV 171, produced in the grand tradition of musicians who steal from themselves and others, harbors  a parody: "Scented kisses of Zephyrus are turned into Jesus on New Year's morning,"

Strike Up the Band!

Chez Underbelly has a new project: the Bach cantatas.  Somebody gave Mrs. B the thick, sturdy hardbound edition of John Eliot Gardiner's Bach:  Music in the Castle of Heaven  for Christmas last year (actually, two people did but that is another story).   It's almost impossibly rich in insight but also dense and requires attention--neither one of us has actually read it through yet.  But happens we are also the proud owners of the boxed set--the John Eliot  Gardner CDs from"The Bach Cantata Pilgrimage."  So it was she who said--look, let's do this right.  One or two a night. Work our way through the Lutheran Church year.   We'll use Gardiner. But it is your job (she said to me) to dig up more useful background, etc.

And we're off and running. Last night we did BWV 63 and 191, Christmas, and would have recognized, even if not told by notes, that 191 gives us an early draft of the B-Minor mass  (it was a one of the first pieces of Bach to make my hair stand on end, back when I was about 19).  I also discovered the eye-popping Bach cantatas website, with (to all appearances) a profusion of resources (here is BWV 191 in Chinese, if that is to your taste).  If I just don't tell her about the site, I can make myself look like a hero.  More anon.  Meanwhile, here's a rendering of BWV 191--not Gardiner, but the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir with Ton Koopman.  Less assertive or dramatic than the Gardiner, but also lovely: