Sunday Bach - Lent 3

There was one exception to the ban on concerted music in the churches during Lent in Leipzig in Bach's time - the Feast of the Annunciation of Mary on March 25, always falling during Lent (and this year being the day after the third Sunday in Lent). This was the celebration of the visit to the Virgin Mary by the Angel Gabriel, announcing that she would be the mother of the Messiah, a major feast in the Church and thus to be celebrated with great joy and festivity. So Bach wrote several cantatas for that celebration, and I've chosen the first, BWV 1, Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (How beautiful shines the morning star, Leipzig 1725). When the members of the Bach Gesellschaft were compiling their definitive catalog of Bach's works they chose this glorious chorale cantata to be the first in the collection. They chose wisely! Here's the late Craig Smith of Emmanuel Music on this magnificent work:

The Feast of the Annunciation is celebrated each year on 25th March and for this day – on which, as an exception during Lent, music was performed in Leipzig – Bach wrote this cantata Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern. The lesson and gospel passage for this day are closely related. The lesson – Isaiah 7: 10-14 – contains the traditional prophecy related to the birth of Christ: ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel. The gospel passage, Luke 1: 26-38, tells how the Angel Gabriel announces to the Virgin Mary that she will give birth to the Messiah. The familiar chorale text by Nicolai is filled with the expression of abundant love for Jesus, and Bach’s librettist reworks the middle strophes in Advent-like anticipation of joy by focusing our attention on Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem.

When the founders of the Bach Gesellschaft were unable to procure the manuscript for the Mass in B Minor, their original choice as the inaugural volume in the publication, they chose ten of the most brilliant and varied cantatas to introduce to the world. Eight of the ten cantatas were from the 2nd Jahrgang. Our cantata here was the first. It was a brilliant choice, for the founders were dealing with Bach's reputation as a dry fugue writer. Here they have a piece with an extraordinarily colorful orchestration, based upon a still familiar tune, mostly happy and verbally unthreatening. The editors of the Bach Gesellschaft thought that their constituency would be mostly church musicians. Here they failed to draw that body of musicians in. Even a cursory look at the volume reveals not only many instruments either unknown or rare in 1850, oboes d'amore, violoncello piccolo, oboes da caccia. Even the modern equivalent of this last-named instrument, the English Horn, was not as prevalent as it is today. French horns were unused to playing in the stratospheric range of Cantata BWV 1. The imagined revival of this music in the churches of Germany never happened; it is still much more common in concert halls than in liturgies. Certainly the exotic sound of the two solo violins, the two high F horns, the two oboes da caccia, in addition to the strings and continuo, has nothing to do with the sound of the modern orchestra as imagined then or now. 

What is quite wonderful in either a period instrument or modern instrument performance of this piece is how well it sounds, how almost miraculously everything balances out, how, with a relative minimum of effort, every strain of this elaborate texture can be heard. This is not always the case with Bach's orchestration. Some instrumental and vocal combinations that were logical in the 1720's are now problematical. But here, perhaps the most bizarre and exotic combination of instruments in all the cantatas works well. Much of that brilliance is the perfect use of different registers for each pair of instruments. The highest register is occupied by the two solo violins, sometimes doubled by the rest of the strings but usually alone. The alto register is occupied by the horns. They are usually used in a motivic fashion, and while understandably less active than the violins are nevertheless quite agile. The tenor range is occupied by the oboes da caccia. They also play with great agility but often because of their range play in unison. The cantus in long notes for the sopranos is pitched quite high so never has a problem being heard. 

The chorale tune is one of two by Philipp Nicolai used by Bach in the 2nd Jahrgang. Like its companion "Wachet auf!" it is a large bar-form melody, although unlike "Wachet auf!" by Bach's time the last four phrases had been consolidated into two. There are four discernable themes. The first combines a theme derived from the chorale with figuration illustrating the "morning star." In addition an arpeggiated figure and a swinging tune and a descending figure all combine to make an unusually varied musical texture. This "patchwork" technique is useful to construct a large chorale fantasia. This is probably the thing that Stravinsky most liked about Bach. So many of his pieces are put together in the same fashion. The actual chorale tune in long notes is marvelously set up. It usually begins alone with the sopranos against the "morning star" figuration. When the lower voices precede the soprano they often sing the chorale, also in long notes as a kind of prelude. The only time this doesn't happen is the stunning last phrase where the three lower voices propel us into the chorale. 

Bach uses the oboe da caccia only three times with the solo soprano voice in the cantatas. The tenor range of the obbligato gives such color to the soprano, and the voice can easily soar above the texture. In the soprano aria, the oboe da caccia starts with a wonderful bouncy theme over pizzicato bass accompaniment. The soprano takes over the theme but is soon expanding upon and coloring the texture. Notice what happens on the word "flammen." There is something wonderfully adolescent and energetic about this music, perfectly depicting Mary. 

After a passionate secco bass recitative, the tenor aria brings back the texture from the opening chorus. Two solo violins play with the ripieno strings. This is a lively virtuoso piece, one of the most difficult tenor arias. It has a marvelous breathless quality that is supported by the joyous words. The reference to the "mouth and strings resounding" brings forth not only wonderful echo effects between the groups of strings, but lively interplay between the athletic tenor part and the solo violins. It is interesting how Bach is willing to write "instrumental" and "unvocal" voice parts and make them sound so good. 

The final choral harmonization is predictably rich. The 1st horn doubles the soprano with the 1st violins; the 2nd horn plays a lively and bouncy independent line. The two oboes da caccia double the altos and tenors with the strings. Once again, Bach gives us a perfect, skillful orchestration so that every line can be heard. 

~Craig Smith, edited by Ryan Turner 

Today's performance is from a recording by the Baroque Orchestra of Amsterdam under the direction of Ton Koopman. Enjoy!

Photo © 2014 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Tapestry

Today is the Vernal Equinox, but things don't look particularly Spring-like around here. Still, there is evidence - Mama Gaia left this tapestry of Ivy on a boulder along the Rail Trail to let us know that the green is coming.

And here's a song for Spring from Peter Mayer:

Photo © 2019 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Intimations

The Spring equinox is coming on Wednesday, and despite the general picture in these parts, there are intimations here and there that the earth will soon open up and Spring will spring forth. There have been Snowdrops blooming in a yard on my route to work for the last week. And today walking in the Dykeman Spring Nature Park there were more signs: birdsong is getting louder and more complex - Cardinals, Song Sparrows, Phoebes, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Flickers, and Red-winged Blackbirds; the clumps of Daffodils along the Dykeman Walking Trail as it runs by the creek are finally up, and one clump by the red bridge is actually blooming; the Mallards in the duck ponds seem to be more brightly colored; and there are visitors from outside the area showing up, restless in the coming Spring and struck with wanderlust. Here are scenes from today's walk.

Daffodils in bloom along the creek

A pair of Mallard drakes on the north duck pond

A visiting Herring Gull on the main duck pond

Hills rolling into the distance, seen from the top of the meadow. They're not green yet, but it's coming

© 2019 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Sunday Bach - Lent 2

Again, Bach wrote no cantata for the second Sunday in Lent because of the ban on concerted music in church during Lent in his time. So we've probed the depths of the Bach catalogue for unassigned sacred cantatas and come up with this, very likely his first - BWV 131, Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir (From the depths I call, Lord, to thee, Mühlhausen 1707/1708). Like last week's offering, this music shows his debt to Buxtehude, plus shows the direction his own talent will go in. Here's the late Craig Smith on this historic piece of music:

In 1707 the twenty-two year old organist at Mühlhausen, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote what might be his first sacred cantata, BWV 131 “Aus der Tiefe.” It was probably written as a memorial for a fire in the town, so the text was based upon Psalm 130, with the addition of two verses from the chorale, “Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut.” The composer of course had many models for his style, most notably the distinguished works in this genre by Buxtehude. But already in this very young piece we see occasional glimpses of the real Bach. Perhaps most characteristic is the sense of symmetry in the form with the 2nd and 4th movements of five being solo arias with the chorale “Herr Jesu Christ” sung in long notes by an upper voice. These chorale organized movements alternate with free and sectionalized settings of the Psalm. 

The scoring is characteristic for small-scale sacred concertos (as they were then called) of the period. Oboe, a single violin, two violas, one notated in alto clef, one in tenor, are joined by a continuo group consisting of a cello; perhaps, though not likely, a bass or violone that played an octave below; undoubtedly an organ; and here a bassoon, which sometimes plays independent lines but most often plays with the continuo group. The oboe and violin often play in dialogue or duet. They seldom double each other as is the case in so many later Bach cantatas. The violas are always accompanimental, although they sometimes double the voices. The bassoon usually doubles the cello-organ combination, although it sometimes makes an independent duet with the oboe. These scoring details are important to enumerate with Bach at the beginning of his career, because they would continue to be the norm. One by one many of these practices would drop away from Bach’s style, but many would remain throughout his career. 

The piece opens with an expressive Adagio. Oboe and violin sing a serious and flexible duet. We already see here Bach’s taste for more active and more detailed bass lines than most of his contemporaries. This reflects Bach’s skill and taste as one of the masters of playing and writing for the pedals on the organ. His tendency to here the harmony from the bottom up clearly generates from his extraordinary capability to do anything he wants with the pedals. The entrance of the voices show’s Bach’s predilection at this period for mannerist text setting. This is style that Bach would occasionally return to, but for the most part soon abandoned. 

Bach at this period is willing, even eager to indulge in a great amount of text repetition. This is something that would get him in trouble with the Leipzig performance of “Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis.” This cantata has perhaps the most extreme examples of it, and one must say as he begins the text in a more and more specific manner, that mannerism soon falls away. The music tends to fall in quite small periods. Often there is a tempo change for every line of text. The ability to make very large forms is here beyond him although the two chorale fantasias are interesting precursors to his manner in Leipzig. We should remember that this music is written before Bach’s discovery of Italian concerti grossi, an important milestone in his career.

The first tempo change in the first movement at bar 57 introduces an important Bach technique of the period, the block choral statement followed by an individual voice statement that is eventually treated fugally. Bach is not at this era a great, or at least sophisticated, fugue writer. The marvelous essays by Buxtehude in that form were, at this period, beyond him. Although there is a generalized very good sense of the mood of the text, individual lines are not specifically characterized. At some points Bach will seize upon an image and project it vividly. For instance the word “flehen” (complaining) is given a wonderful whining portrait with the echo effects. One would like to love the two chorale settings in “Aus der Tiefe,” for they are such a window on the future. But the text repetition of the solo is so extreme and really unvaried that they both can become rather tedious. Bach has discovered a way to compose a large form but really does not know how to use it. 

The third number introduces another early Bach manner that serves him well through the early period. It also is perhaps the most successful section of the cantata. This technique combines long vocal lines, often chromatic in nature with small repeated motoric elements. This “prayer wheel” sound avoids the monotony of the chorale settings both by its harmonic motion but by the intricacy of its texture. This manner becomes more used and even more effective in some of Bach’s slightly later but still early pieces such as BWV 150 and especially BWV 106. 

Cantata BWV 131 has a large number of slow tempi.  It is clear that Largo in this context is not so slow as Adagio, and really should be a rather moving “walking” tempo Andante. Allegro and Vivace seem to be used interchangeably and should both be quite brisk. Both chorale settings gain if they are not taken too slowly, This cantata has been quite often performed, but really is not nearly so effective as the piece that it most resembles, the Cantata BWV 150. There we find many of the qualities of this piece in a much more favorable light.

© Craig Smith

Today's performance is from a 1992 recording by the chorus and orchestra of the Collegium Vocale Gent under the direction of Philippe Herreweghe. Enjoy!

Photo © 2017 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Marching Along

March is moving along toward Spring. No blooms or foliage yet, but the temps are warmer. With the snow from the three storms we had recently plus the torrential rain Saturday night/Sunday morning, the ground is definitely damp; even atop the hills the ground is squishy. And bird song is starting to fill the air - on my walk in the park today I heard a couple of Red-winged Blackbirds and Cardinals, as well as a Red-bellied Woodpecker. I also saw three Red-tailed Hawks cruising over the park, and a cheeky Mockingbird greeted me at the beginning of the nature trail; the little bugger even mooned me before he flew off! I kept an eye out for the usual Daffodils growing along the nature trail as it runs by the creek, but nothing yet.

One odd thing, though. One of the big old Norway Spruces by the south duck pond was fatally injured in that crazy wind storm we got last month; its roots were partially pulled up out of the ground but not toppled over, so they cut it down before it could fall over on somebody. Well, somebody put a shrine/installation/effigy/something on the remaining 5-foot stump - a blob of wax and pebbles splatted on the bark and embedded with feathers. It has the look of something out of Blair Witch, or from the M. Night Shyamalan movie The Village. There's just something very creepy about it, probably deliberately so.

After that it was hike up to the meadow to get a view of the area from the top of the hill. Even with snow dotted here and there, there's a Spring-like feel to it all.

This Mockingbird welcomed me to the park down by the ball fields

Cheeky little bugger mooned me!

The creek in the park looking downstream from the new bridge; you can just see the red bridge through the trees

The weird whatever on the stump of the Norway Spruce

Looking north toward the mountains from the meadow

The rolling hills of Central PA

© 2019 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Sunday Bach - Lent 1

Bach wrote no cantatas for Lent as it was the practice in his time to have no concerted music in church during that penitential period. So as I've done in the past, I've gone searching among Bach's unattached cantatas. And I found this one - BWV 150, Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich (To thee, Lord, I lift up my soul, Arnstadt 1704 - 1707). This is a very early work of Bach's, and shows his influences, most notably Buxtehude. Here's Simon Crouch on this most interesting cantata:

Had I been asked to perform a blind identification of the composer of this cantata, I would have immediately said "Buxtehude". It's probably one of music's greatest tragedies that we have lost a vast mass of Buxtehude's choral works as well as much of his chamber work and only have the organ works to console us. Having said this, the catalogues that I have to hand show that this is not considered a spurious or even dubious attribution to Bach these days and if you listen to this cantata in the context of other early works (this is dated 1708/9) and consider that the young Bach was likely influenced by the older composer then you will probably agree that this is a very fine example of the young master at work.

This is one those cantatas in which every movement has something for somebody and the libretto is happily up the standard of the music! The work opens with a solemn string sinfonia which leads into a short opening chorus in the style of a motet. This is followed by a short and attractive soprano aria. The next chorus, also in motet style, starts with a bold ascending scale after which the line is handed between the parts most effectively. Unusually, the following aria is a trio for alto, tenor and bass. Next is a chorus with an attractive prelude which leads into a fugal section. The final movement is a choral chaconne. It is compulsory to go and listen to the final movement of Brahms' fourth symphony after hearing this movement. Brahms was one of the few original subscribers to the Bach Gesellschaft edition and was so impressed with this movement that he quoted the bass line in his symphony. All of these goodies are packed into a little over fifteen minutes. It's a lovely little cantata. Do listen to it!

Copyright © 1996 & 1998, Simon Crouch

Today's performance is from a 2007 Deutsche Harmonia Mundi recording by the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble and Choir under the direction of Thomas Hengelbrock. Enjoy!

Photo © 2018 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Hmmmmm... I May Have Spoken Too Soon!

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, 'Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.'”
― Lewis Carroll

Yes, we're into March and it's still snowing. Thursday night and Friday night we got a gentle 3 inches each time, and then last night we got another 6 inches, snowing a little harder this time. It's quite beautiful today, colder with a bright blue sky. Today and tomorrow are my "weekend", so I was lucky enough to be able to get out and enjoy it this morning, going for a walk in the Dykeman Spring Nature Park, and I brought you back some of that beauty.

Branch Creek at McLean House

Feral cat tracks on the Dykeman Walking Trail

Walking along the Dykeman Walking Trail

A snowy Dykeman wetland

The north duck pond

A copse and its shadow on the snow up on the meadow

The mountains to the north from the meadow

© 2019 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Sunday Bach - Quinquagesima

Quinquagesima means 50 days before Easter; it's the last Sunday before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, so people are eating and drinking to empty their larders before the penitential Lenten season forces them to partake of more plain fare. And in Leipzig in Bach's time. orchestral music like his cantatas was forbidden in the churches, so the cantata for this last Sunday before Lent would necessarily be fairly impressive to make up for the musical drought to come. Bach wrote several cantatas for this Sunday, including the two that were his audition for the post of Kantor at Leipzig in 1723, but this one feels far more celebratory to me - BWV 127, Herr Jesu Christ, wahr' Mensch und Gott (Lord Jesus Christ, true man and God, Leipzig 1725). This is considered one of Bach's greatest cantatas, mainly because he musically creates the picture of Jesus as both man and God. The late Craig Smith's essay on this cantata for Emmanuel Music is well worth the read:

The Last Sunday after the Epiphany in the 20th century Episcopal Church is known as Quinquagesima, the last Sunday before Lent, and as Estomihi in the 18th century Lutheran church. It was the last time in which any concerted music was heard in Leipzig until the feast of the Annunciation about five weeks later. The appointed readings for this Sunday in Bach’s time are both important documents and central to Christianity. The epistle is the great 13th Chapter of Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians, the familiar chapter about love. It is perhaps the profoundest thing in the Epistles. The Gospel is from the eighteenth chapter of Luke. It begins with Jesus announcing “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem.” The disciples do not understand the significance of that statement. On the way a blind man cries “Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.” Jesus cures him of his blindness and they all continue their journey. There are several significant events here. Today’s cantata BWV 127 is mainly concerned with the dual human and divine identity of Jesus. The significance of the journey to Jesus’ final fate is always present, albeit here somewhat in the background. 

BWV 127 has always been recognized as one of the finest of the cantatas. The scholar Arnold Schering even went so far as to call it the greatest of all of the cantatas. There is a sense that Bach knows that this will be the last music parishioners will hear for many weeks. All of the Quinquagesima pieces go to great lengths to set up the important issues that will be confronted during Lent. That sense of abundance is projected from the beginning: two and maybe three chorales are represented in the opening chorus. The chorale “Herr Jesu Christ, wahr’ Mensch und Gott” both appears motivically throughout the orchestration and is sung by the chorus, led by the sopranos singing the melody in long notes. The chorale tune “Christe, du lamm Gottes” is played in the orchestra in long notes, first by the strings, then at various times by the oboes and recorders. A third chorale, “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,” has been spotted by some scholars buried in the continuo line near the beginning. It is the kind of thing that you hear after it has been pointed out to you. The texture of the chorus is high, bright and dense. The dotted rhythms that dominate the piece are like angel wings, rather than aggressive. They are both static and they travel. The two main chorales so permeate the texture that one can hardly see any bar in the piece without them. Inherent in the combinations of both chorales and other materials is the possibility for great variety of phrase length. There are of course, many things that are sui generis about this chorus. One of the most remarkable is the associative way that an idea is begun and passed through the texture and then discarded. The ideas are always begun by the words. An example is in the fifth phrase of the chorale. The second statement of the text in the alto part introduces an expressive little half step. This is passed around all of the vocal parts and then to the instrumental parts. It disappears at the end of the choral phrase. The final phrase of the chorale is repeated at the very end with the sopranos leaving the tune and joining the commentary. It ends not with a long note but an almost unresolved quarter note. There is no orchestral postlude. 

The tenor recitative and soprano aria describe a sinner’s last moments on earth. The tenor with great horror and vividness enumerates the last terror, the chilling sweat of death, and the stiff limbs. He begs for repose. That moment of repose is the soprano aria. Two recorders play little repeated bell tones over a pizzicato bass. An oboe sings a melody of heartbreaking sadness and repose. The child soprano sings of the soul resting in Jesus’ hands, when earth covers the body. The B section begs for the death bells to call one soon. At this point all of the upper strings join in with the continuo pizzicatos. At the end of the line of text on the word “unerschrocken” the pizzicatos stop and the oboe like a tiny “last trumpet” plays a flourish up to high Bb announcing the awaking of Jesus. The gesture is so amazingly dramatic that one feels Bach has to undercut it by giving the aria a full da capo. A drama so profound needs distance from this kind of realism. 

The last large piece in the cantata is a complex and formally advanced vision of the last judgment. The distinction between recitative and aria is here blurred to the breaking point. The trumpet enters in fanfares over repeated note string passages as the bass in recitative announces the last trumpet. The motion gradually becomes calmer and the voice with continuo introduces an arioso utilizing the first notes of the main chorale tune “Herr Jesu Christ, wahr’ Mensch und Gott.” This arioso passage rather abruptly cadences into a vivid 6/8 picture of the last judgment with full strings and trumpet. What is surprising here is that the chorale arioso makes an entrance two more times in the last judgment music. Any semblance of recitative followed by aria is gone in this movement. Like the opening chorus, the bass aria comes to an abrupt close and the brilliant harmonization of the chorale ends the cantata. Cantatas such as this are so removed from the norm of either religious or operatic music of the period that it is hard to understand where they came from. Even such masterpieces as the St. John and St. Matthew Passion have identifiable precedents in the German Lutheran tradition. There is a way in which Bach would never reach this level again.

© Craig Smith

This week's performance is from a 1999 recording by the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir under the direction of Ton Koopman. Enjoy!

Photo © 2014 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Sunday Bach - Sexagesima

Bach wrote three cantatas for Sexagesima (60 days before Easter) Sunday, and I chose this interesting solo cantata for this year - BWV 181, Leichtgesinnte Flattergeister (Light-minded frivolous spirits, Leipzig 1724). Based on the Gospel lesson for the day, the parable of the sower sowing seed on different qualities of soil in Luke, the cantata starts off in a humorous mood in the opening aria and then proceeds to get more serious. Here's the late Craig Smith of Emmanuel Music on this cantata:

Bach’s take on the parable from Luke is speculative and rather abstract. He immediately jumps into the question of why, when given the choice between the wise and the foolish, the good and the bad, man will make the wrong choice. The German word “Flattergeister” is sometimes translated as “flibbertigibbet.” The aria that opens with that phrase is one of the few overtly humorous things in the Bach sacred cantatas. The wonderfully patchy orchestration and the bouncy, un-centered vocal line is the perfect portrayal of vacuous self-satisfaction. The sinister entrance of “Belial,” always with the most unexpected harmonic turns, makes the flibbertigibbet an easy and fair target. The serious and detailed alto recitative makes clear that the results of this behavior are disastrous.

This cantata comes down to us in a broken and incomplete form. The violin obbligato for the literally thorny tenor aria is missing. John Harbison has provided the suitably spiky and virtuosic violin part. The soprano recitative provides a change of tone, introducing the positive affect of the following chorus. Embedded in the chorus is an elaborate and richly detailed duet for soprano and alto. In keeping with the cantata's fragmentary nature, there is no concluding chorale.

 © Craig Smith, additions by Pamela Dellal 

Today's performance is from a 1997 recording by the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir under the direction of Ton Koopman. Maestro Koopman chose to orchestrate for oboe one of Robert Levin's reconstructions of the missing violin obbligato in the tenor aria. Enjoy!

Photo © 2011 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Last Snow of the Season?

Another storm came through here today, giving us around 7 inches of snow this morning. Unfortunately it turned to sleet in the afternoon and freezing rain in the evening. My boss texted me around 10 am and said the store would be closing early and I should stay home, so of course I headed for Dykeman Park so I could walk in the snow before it turned to sleet. Heh, heh! I was the first one in, and I walked the trails in virgin snow. The snow was coming down hard but with no wind, so it came straight down silently, and I walked the trails in that silence that only comes within the depths of the woods in the falling snow. Nirvana!

By the time I reached the north duck pond the snow had backed off, and by the time I headed back home it had turned to sleet. But before it did I got these pictures of Nature in the snow. Enjoy!

© 2019 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Today's Walk

My work schedule has changed, and I no longer have Sundays free. Now my "weekend" is Monday and Tuesday, and this morning I did my weekly walk in the Dykeman Spring park. It's late Winter, and while there's still some snow, it's messy. In the wetland it's mostly gone, as the two shots I took there show. But there's still a good two inches in the woods on the way to the meadow, and it lends some character to the usual scenery there. 

It also reveals things that would have been a bit more hidden if there had been no snow; along the Upland Trail I noticed a trail of mud and critter tracks, which ended in a hole in the ground surrounded by clumps of fresh-dug mud. It seems there's at least one Groundhog up and taking care of business!

Meanwhile, up on the meadow the snow has pretty much melted, just leaving enough to create patterns on the ground accenting the rolling quality of the hills. It was a great walk. Take a look!

The Purple Martin house and Paper Birches in the wetland

The creek from the red bridge

The log stairs on the Upland Trail have a totally different look in the snow

Br'er Groundhog's new digs

Rolling hills

© 2019 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Sunday Bach - Septuagesima

Today we enter the pre-Easter season with Septuagesima Sunday (70 days before Easter). Bach wrote three cantatas for this Sunday; last year I played his final cantata for the occasion, and this year I've chosen the middle one - BWV 92, Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn mein Herz und Sinn ergeben (I have given my heart and mind to God's heart and mind, Leipzig 1725). This is a fairly lengthy chorale cantata, and a complex one, with many fugal elements and recitatives with choral tropes (insertions). Here's the late Craig Smith of Emmanuel Music on this magnificent cantata:

The chorale ”Was mein Gott will, das g’scheh allzeit” is also known with another set of words “Ich hab’ in Gottes Herz und Sinn.” It is something of a tour de force that Bach uses the same tune with different words on adjacent Sundays. His setting of “Was mein Gott will,” was, particularly in its chorale portions, militant, brimming with energy and straightforward. For Septuagesima, the use of the tune is ambiguous, even mysterious. Much of these qualities have to do with the new words. But there is also a feeling that Bach can do anything he wants with these melodies. The first verse of the chorale speaks of the soul surrendering only to find the sure way to heaven. The opening orchestral statement has a submissive motive in the oboes d’amore. Its tonal answer by the violins is not only submissive but positively awkward in its melodic shape. All other musical material throughout the movement illustrates the climb back to heaven. With this simple group of opposing materials Bach builds a large and very impressive chorus. The mood is of quiet pleading and supplication. It couldn’t be more different than the military briskness of the Cantata BWV 111. The one interesting similarity of the two movements is that the repetition of the Stollen at the end of the Abgesang is again identical. It is a clever device for keeping the listener grounded as to where he is in this long and diffuse bar-form piece. 

The second movement is one of Bach’s most difficult chorale-with-tropes movements. Here the distinction between chorale and recitative is blurred. For instance that bass coloration of the line of chorale “Wenn er mich auch gleich wirt ins Meer” melds into the tune underneath the following recitative. We have occasionally seen this in chorale tropes before, but not to this extent. The effect is of confusion and storminess. The one reference to the sea in this verse becomes important. Although both “stormy” arias that follow do not specifically indicate it, Bach clearly hears them as seascapes. 

The tenor aria #3 is the first sea piece. Against regular but agitated string figuration, a wild and irregular line in the first violin gives a vivid picture of a storm at sea. The tenor sings sometimes isolated yelps, sometimes jagged lines related to the string parts. The brilliant part of this piece is the regular rhythmic underpinning of the lower strings. It would sound like pandemonium without these lines. 

In this cantata the chorale always returns as the voice of reason. In #4 two oboes d’amore play an expressive little motive in canon accompanying the simple alto statement of the chorale theme. The harmony is very much the world of the opening chorus. It is a kind of subtle chromaticism that is remarkably versatile. Look how Bach can color an opposing idea like “he knows when joy, he knows when sorrow.” In these brief bars, both joy and sorrow are fleeting. Neither is completely formed by the harmony. Each has an element of the other. 

After a secco tenor recitative our second seascape, this time for bass with continuo occurs. It is a more orderly affair, more positive in outlook but nevertheless stormy. It is the kind of aria that could seem ordinary in its bluster if the phrasing and the juxtaposition of the bass to the voice weren’t so subtle and sophisticated. Again the chorale enters in to bring a sense of calm. Again the chorale-with-trope form is used but this time with the full chorus and solo voices providing the tropes. Just as in the 2nd number in Cantata BWV 3 performed by us Jan 19th, each voice is represented, this time starting with the lowest voice. The soprano then ends the number segueing into the Aria #8. 

It is important to hear the previous sections as sea music because the pastoral elements of the soprano aria are key to its impact. The oboe d’amore plays a naïve and heartbreaking shepherd’s tune over the pizzicato strings. The boy soprano announces: “I will always be true to my shepherd.” After so much music that is in every way “at sea” this simple pastoral piece is remarkably touching. Bach knows that after so much ambiguity and complexity, and make no mistake: this is one of the most psychologically complicated of all of the cantatas, this child-like faith is the only answer. As wonderful as this aria is as a separate piece, in its context it is overwhelming. Although the final chorale takes us back to the harmonic world of the opening, the sense of benediction in the harmonization is unmistakable. 

© Craig Smith

Today's performance is another gem from the J.S. Bach Foundation of Trogen, Switzerland by the orchestra and choir of the Foundation under the direction of Rudolf Lutz. Enjoy!

Photo © 2019 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Getting Sentimental

I took part in an interesting conversation on Facebook the other day. A friend was complaining that her significant other was objecting to doing something special for Valentine's Day, saying that the holiday was invented by commercial concerns looking to make money, and my friend was asking everyone else's opinions on the holiday. My own contribution was that considering that the celebration of the saint's day as a holiday dedicated to love was a fairly recent development, one has to wonder, and repeated the widespread opinion that it's a "Hallmark holiday". After considering that for a while and reading others' responses to her query, I decided to take a closer look at all this.

It appears that I was partially right. One of the two Valentines celebrated on February 14 was an early bishop who performed Christian weddings at a time when the powers that be in the Roman Empire objected to such a thing, and he was executed for it, thus making him a "hero for love". But the holiday was never really celebrated as such until medieval times, and then really only among the aristocracy as part of the cult of chivalry. Among the peasantry and the developing middle class it was pretty much ignored. Until the Victorian era in the 19th century. And therein lies a tale.

In 1861 Victoria's consort Prince Albert died, leaving the queen heartbroken. And in 1860 in the US the Civil War broke out, ending up decimating a large part of a whole generation of young men in the bloodiest conflict ever fought on American soil. The reaction to these events was the rise of a cult of sentimentality on both sides of the Atlantic.

I've written about this before on this blog, in reference to the change in cemeteries that took place at this time. In the US especially, graveyards were crowded, unpleasant places where the dead were basically dumped; they weren't called boneyards for nothing! But after the Civil War cemeteries became park-like, with shade trees and monumental sculpture, and benches for the mourners to rest on. They became restful places for the living to come and spend time with the beloved departed, and families even began having picnics there.

But this sentimentality wasn't restricted to cemeteries. Christmas benefitted from this; Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" and Clement C. Moore's poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" were reflections of this mood as well, creating a sentimental, nostalgic, family-oriented holiday. Christmas wasn't the only holiday; holidays like Valentine's Day and Mothers' Day, holidays built on sentiment, also popped up. And the rise of spiritualism, the belief in communicating with the dead, also started during this time. If the Victorian era had a watchword, it was "sentiment".

I have a theory about why this happened, one that is based on an already widespread theory about the modern celebration of Christmas in cultural history studies. In Great Britain and consequently its colonies in North America, radical Calvinist Protestantism came to dominance, toppling the Catholic royalty and enforcing their own rather dour version of Christianity on the land, even going so far as banning Christmas and Halloween, calling it "papist heresy" and "pagan frivolity". Catholicism and the Church of England, which retained much of the Catholic liturgy and church calendar, were seen as the realm of the royalty and aristocracy, while the dour Calvinism of the Puritans and their heirs was considered the realm of the working classes.

Then in the mid 19th century the middle class became tired of the joyless attitudes of the Calvinist dominance, and the Oxford Movement arose, a "nostalgic" movement to reintroduce more liturgy and celebration to the Church of England. This movement inspired many, including those involved in the Arts and Crafts movement, the Pre-Raphaelites, and poets like Christina Rossetti and Gerard Manley Hopkins. And while the working class remained in their chapels and didn't accept the theology of the Oxford Movement, they did pick up the sentiment of the movement, and thus Christmas and Valentine's Day came back into fashion. And of course Americans, especially those on the East Coat, Anglophiles that we are, picked up on this and exported it to the US in the wake of the Civil War. People were done with trudging through a joyless life; it was time to love and celebrate!

Of course, it's not all as simple as that. There are a lot of other factors involved. But the main thing was that by the 19th century life had become a dull drudgery to a majority of the population, and the natural movement of the pendulum started to swing back to a more joyful, lighter approach to life. Nowadays those celebrations have been taken over by mercantile interests and have made the holidays more commercialized than a lot of people are comfortable with, but the original sentiment still hangs in there. We still need love, and family, and cozy fires, and roses, and chocolate, and we still look for ways to celebrate them. Maybe we'll get so tired of the commercialism that the people will once again take control and celebrate in the "good old-fashioned way"!

© 2019 by A. Roy Hilbinger  

Textures

While on my weekly Sunday walk-in-the-park in the Dykeman Spring Nature Park, my attention was drawn to the texture created by the frost on the grass on the trail. So I decided that today's focus would be the textures in nature seen up close (except for that last shot).

Frosty

Scar

Bark

Rock, moss, and lichen

Hommage à Rothko - Winter Reflection

© 2019 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Sunday Bach - Epiphany 5

Bach wrote no cantatas for the fifth Sunday after Epiphany, because that particular Sunday almost never happens. This year Easter is just about the latest it can occur, and apparently no such thing happened during Bach's career. Yes, it's that rare! So what to do? Well, the easy answer is to use the other cantata Bach wrote for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany. Problem solved! BWV 14, Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit (Were God not with us at this time, Leipzig 1735) is the latest known Bach liturgical cantata. It's a chorale cantata based on the hymn of the same name by Martin Luther, and it's quite a magnificent piece. Here's Michael Beattie of Emmanuel Music on this late Bach work:

Today’s cantata, Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit, BWV 14 is Bach’s latest extant work in the cantata genre, dating from January, 1735. The outer movements employ Martin Luther’s texts based on Psalm 124 (a hymn of deliverance and communal thanksgiving) while the inner movements are concerned mainly with heavy-handed metaphors for sin: war and natural disaster from which God’s protection is required. Bach responded to this somewhat exasperating text with a work both learned and quirky. 

The apparent academic severity of the opening chorus belies a dense and fascinating compositional interior. The entrance of each theme (an embellished choral phrase) is followed almost immediately by its inversion - with the eventual appearance of the augmented chorale tune in the oboes and trumpet. This is merely the starting point for an almost exhaustive exploration of contrapuntal possibilities. Extraordinary concentration is required of both listener and performer - as well as an acceptance that much will be missed on first hearing.

The virtuoso soprano aria comes as a startling contrast and clears the air with its delightful orchestration (trumpet fanfares and busy string figuration) and an almost humorous setting of the text. Bach consistently sets the word Schwach [weak] in the lowest (weakest?) part of the soprano’s range. The writing seems a nod to the pre-classical style in its harmonic simplicity and rhythmic playfulness. This seems appropriate given that the battle imagery (so prevalent in the orchestration) suggests an ‘enemy’ blustery and impressive, if somewhat shallow.

With the tenor recitative, we turn to water imagery to describe the snapping jaws of sin. The singer’s line is fantastically disjunct while the bass line roars like a Nor’easter.

The bass aria is a showpiece for the singer, two oboes and a very active bass line. The three note motive heard in the oboes mirrors the first three notes of the chorale tune and (like the opening chorus) is often inverted.  The bass enters with ferocious confidence. Careful listeners will discern the oboe’s material in the second part of the phrase: ‘...sind wir vor den Feinden frei’  [...we are safe from our enemies].  The ubiquitous water imagery is found in the second part of the text, perhaps explaining florid instrumental writing. 

The chorale is remarkable mainly for its interesting suspensions and syncopations in the inner voices.

© Michael Beattie

This week's performance is from a recording by the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner. Enjoy!

Photo © 2018 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Sunday Bach - Epiphany 4

Bach wrote two cantatas for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, and I've chosen his first one - BWV 81, Jesus schläft, was soll ich hoffen? (Jesus sleeps, what can I hope for?, Leipzig 1724). Based on the episode of Jesus stilling the storm in Matthew 8, this cantata is very thrilling, with lots of excitement and movement. When he was hired for the job in Leipzig Bach was advised by the powers that be that musical drama was frowned upon. Thank goodness he ignored that advice! Here's the late Craig Smith of Emmanuel Music on this cantata:

The familiar story of Jesus stilling the waves is placed in between two of the most mysterious stories in Matthew. First is the peculiar exhortation by Jesus to the man who wants to bury his dead father. Jesus says to him: "Let the dead bury their dead." After our story Jesus and the disciples run into two men infested with devils. They induce a herd of pigs to jump over a cliff and destroy themselves. Some of the oddness of these two tales informs Bach's setting of the stilling of the waves. Instead of opening with the tempest, Bach's first aria for alto invokes a kind of otherworldly calm with gently swaying recorders doubling the muted strings. The cantata then moves on to one of the most ferocious of all of Bach's storm scenes. Here the rolling waves of the strings are punctuated by the hysterical coloratura of the tenor. The austere bass aria scolding the disciples for their lack of faith is followed by the controlled fury of the two oboes d'amore and strings while the bass stills the waves. Only a short perfunctory recitative follows leading into a magical harmonization of the great chorale, "Jesu meine Freude." 

© Craig Smith

Today's performance is by the early music ensemble Le Petite Bande under the direction of Sigiswald Kuijken. Enjoy!

Photo © 2008 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Surprise Snow!

We got a little snow yesterday, maybe 2 or 3 inches. But for such a little bit of snow it turned out to be surprisingly scenic. It's also very crystalline; it was in the upper teens to low twenties when it fell, so it's very light and fluffy, but it's also very tenaciously clingy. All in all, it's very scenic. I went walking in the Dykeman Spring Nature Park this morning (while the temperature was still very cold) and got some nice shots of this thoroughly enjoyable snow. It was especially enjoyable because apparently I beat everybody else; the only tracks in the snow were my own and the resident wildlife - I saw rabbit and squirrel tracks as well as the track of at least one of the resident feral cats. I love it when I'm the first to disturb the snow! But enjoy it now, because we're supposed to get into the 40s and 50s in the next few days, and all that pretty snow will be gone.

Along the Dykeman Walking Trail

Along the trail in the wetland, following the track of a feral cat

A  view of the creek from the red bridge

A close-up of this sharply crystalline snow

© 2019 by A. Roy Hilbinger