Sunday Bach - Lent 3

Before winning the post of music director in Leipzig, Bach held the position of court composer in Weimar, and in that town the ban against concert music during Lent apparently wasn't so formidable as we actually have a cantata written for Oculi, the third Sunday in Lent - Widerstehe doch der Sünde (Stand firm against sin, Weimar 1714/15). This is a solo cantata (for alto voice) and very short time-wise, although this doesn't rule out complexity and depth. There are some highly unusual things in this cantata, including chromaticism, dissonance, and a fugue with the voice as one of the elements. The late Craig Smith of Emmanuel Music wrote a very interesting essay on this cantata:

At the beginning of his tenure as court composer in Weimar, Bach set several of the texts of J.C. Lehms. The Lehms texts are the most luridly bloody and preachy of all the Bach texts. They also have a raw power that suits Bach’s in-your-face style of that period. The opening aria of Cantata 54 is one of the most astonishing things in all of Bach. Sin is portrayed as a gorgeous, irresistible thing. One is reminded of the Andrew Marvel poems that refer to the jewel-like blood on the back of Jesus. The aria begins with a grinding and shocking dissonance in the orchestra. Gorgeous, lapping phrases build up like layers of velvet on this dissonant bass. The expressive voice part is like a rich, deep nap on the many levels of gorgeous chromatic harmony. Bach wants us, in this lengthy and incredibly expressive aria, to feel the push and temptation of sin. The lengthy recitative that follows clarifies his point of view. The fugal last aria is spikier but no less astonishingly chromatic. While this cantata is not very well known, it is a remarkable missing link in the Bach oeuvre and essential to our complete understanding of this composer. 

© Craig Smith

The performance I've chosen for this week is a live 2013 concert by the Sweelinck Barokorkest under the direction of Teunis van der Zwart, featuring alto Sophia Patsi and countertenor Eduardo Rojas. And this touches on one of my pet peeves about "historical accuracy" in Early Music. Back in those times people were stupid, and women weren't allowed to sing in church. So the tradition of boys' choirs, boy sopranos and altos, countertenors, and castrati developed to substitute high (or artificially high) men's voices for women's. At the risk of being historically inaccurate, I consider this tradition to be sexist and ignorant in  the extreme. Why does the classical music world insist on perpetuating the misogyny of our embarrassing past? There is a world of difference between the artificiality of high male voices and women's voices, and much of the music written for women's voices were meant for women, only being substituted in public to adhere to a violently anti-feminine church. Bach's first wife was a gifted alto, and he worked with other gifted women singers throughout his career; the parts he wrote for altos and sopranos were written for those women, and to use countertenors now to sing those parts is insulting not only to women but to Bach himself. To hell with "historical accuracy"! Whatever happened to artistic integrity?

So it was basically very difficult to find a recording of this cantata using an actual female alto singer. And even in the video I found and liked they still used a countertenor for the third movement. Mr. Rojas is certainly a good singer, but why couldn't they continue to use Ms. Patsi, especially after her magnificent rendering of the first two movements? Ah well, who am I to complain. This is an excellent recording of one of Bach's more interesting cantatas. Enjoy!

Photo © 2012 by A. Roy Hilbinger