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 

A Dreary Day

Today's Sunday walk in the Dykeman Spring Nature Park was a dreary one. Now that the latest snow has melted everything looks messy and disheveled, and the colors are drab and muted. Still, there were objects of interest, including a shelf fungus and a Great Blue Heron. The Heron flew by me by the north duck pond and set up by the creek at the outflow from the other duck pond across the street, a great fishing spot any other time of the year; I doubt there are many fish moving around in these icy waters!

The Dykeman wetland is looking a tad dreary these days

So is the creek

A shelf fungus on a tree along the nature trail

Great Blue Heron fishing

© 2019 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Sunday Bach - Epiphany 3

Bach wrote four cantatas for the third Sunday after Epiphany. This year I've chosen a beautiful and moving work - BWV 73, Herr, wie du willt, so schick's mit mir (Lord, as you will, so let it be done with me, Leipzig 1724). This cantata addresses the early controversy in the church, whether the message of Jesus is just for the Jews or for Jew and Gentile alike, with the Gospel reading for the day, the story of the faith of the Roman centurion. Here's the late Craig Smith of Emmanuel Music (edited by Ryan Turner) on this interesting and beautiful cantata:

The cantata BWV 73, composed in 1724 in Leipzig, begins as an unsolvable knot, which in the course of the piece unravels to produce music of the greatest peace and comfort. The Gospel reading – Matthew 8:1-13, for which our cantata was conceived, speaks of the faith of the Centurion. The reading emphasizes the lessons that can be learned from the faith of a Gentile. The issue of undying faith becomes the issue that is repeatedly hammered home in this text. 

The work begins with a chorus that is as single-minded and thunderous as the famous opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The oft-repeated motif in both the horn and the chorus actually resembles the “fate” motif in the symphony and functions in exactly the same way. The hard-hitting chorale theme is troped by some of the most emotional and over-the-top recitatives in all of Bach. The chorus ends without musical or emotional resolution. The gently descending oboe line that begins the tenor aria acts like the dove descending and bringing a balm to mankind. It is one of the most striking releases of tension in all of Bach. The middle section of the aria is like a memory of the despair of the opening chorus. The bass recitative and aria go even deeper. The recitative sets up education and submission to God’s will as the only hope of salvation. The aria is, unusually, a set of three quatrains, a form rare in the Bach cantatas. Our opening chorus motif, “Herr wie du willt” has been transformed into something malleable and plastic, one can almost see the soul descending into submission. The magical funeral bells – string  pizzicati- in the third verse are unbearably poignant. A direct and affirming verse of the chorale, “Von Gott will ich nicht lassen” ends the cantata.

© Craig Smith, with Ryan Turner

Today's performance is a magnificent one by the Collegium Vocale Gent under the direction of Philippe Herreweghe. Enjoy!

Photo © 2018 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

More Visitors

Papa and Mama Red have returned to the feeder station. Yesterday Papa hopped around on the snow, but today he went right to the source, the Sunflower seeds in the tray feeder. Meanwhile, Mama decided to check out the leftovers below.

© 2019 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Another Storm

We had another Winter storm move through last night and this morning. It was a bit more intense than the last two. We got probably four or so inches before it turned to rain, and we woke up this morning to two or three inches of very soggy snow. While I was out walking in the Dykeman Spring Nature Park later in the morning the following cold front started moving through; the wind picked up and the temperature started to plummet, and all that soggy snow started to harden. This is going to be a royal pain until it gets warm enough to melt again. Meanwhile, it's very scenic, as you can see from the following photos.

The storm moving off

A streamlet in the wetland in the snow

The wetland in the snow

The cold front moving in over the mountains

© 2019 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Sunday Bach - Epiphany 2

Bach wrote three cantatas for the second Sunday after Epiphany, and all three are a tad gloomy despite being based around the story of Christ's first public miracle, changing water to wine at the wedding in Cana. The point of the message for the day is less the festive occasion and more about Mary's doubt at what her son is planning to do and Jesus' chastising her for her lack of faith. For this year I've chosen the first of Bach's cantatas for this Sunday - BWV 155, Mein Gott, wie lang, ach lange? (My God, how long, oh how long?, Weimar 1716). This is a small, intimate little solo cantata, lasting only 15 minutes and consisting only of the four vocalists, two violins, a viola, a bassoon, and continuo (in this case double bass, cello, and organ). Michael Beattie of Emmanuel Music gives some insight on this lovely little cantata:

Today’s Gospel on the miracle of the Wedding at Cana is about transformation - water into wine, doubt into trust. It is the exact reading that Bach’s congregation would have heard just before the first performance of today’s cantata. Bach’s wonderful Weimar librettist Salomo Franck weaves in the general theme of the reading while making full poetic use of the images of water, wine and tears. An arresting recitative opens the cantata - we hear Bach the hypothetical opera composer at work as the soprano (the Soul) expounds her troubles over an anxious throbbing bass line with dissonant interjections from the upper strings. The word ‘Freude’ [joy] is ironically colored by a dazzling upward melisma from the soprano, accompanied by downward string arpeggios - more descriptive of the abundant tears than the absent ‘wine of joy’.  In the second movement, the bassoon takes on the role of the troubled (perhaps weeping) soul in an extraordinary solo obbligato, with the alto and tenor - standing off to the side of the drama - offering encouraging words in parallel thirds and sixths. The extended bass recitative provides words of solace to the Soul from the voice of Christ - the wine of comfort and joy nicely mirrored in the continuo line. The lively triplets prevalent in the soprano aria suggest the energetic shrugging off of care and worry as the Soul casts herself into the arms of God. A verse from the chorale ‘Es is das Heil’ concludes the cantata, providing further thematic clarification.

© Michael Beattie

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

Photo © 2018 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Visitors

I haven't been keeping the camera eye on the bird feeders out my kitchen window for a while, but lately I've been having a regular visitor, and that got me to aim the camera out the window again. The regular is a Carolina Wren who seems to be in love with my suet feeder. While I was at it I got a shot of some other regulars - a Junco and a male House Finch at the tower feeder. Check 'em out!

Carolina Wren

Male House Finch (left) and Dark-eyed Junco (eating)

© 2019 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

A Snowy Sunday Walk in the Park

We had some snow overnight, the first of the new year. It's only about 2 inches, but it still adds magic to the usual Sunday walk in the park. I went with black and white this time to bring out the contrast between the snow and the trees, and used Alien Skin's Exposure with its Kodak Tri-X 400 emulator to give it that film's silvery shine. 

During the walk in the park it was still snowing, very lightly with very fine flakes that didn't so much fall as dance their way to the ground on the slightest breeze. This put me in mind of Claude Debussy's "The snow is dancing", the fourth movement of his Children's Corner suite. So naturally I went on YouTube to find it, and here it is. Enjoy!

Photos © 2019 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Sunday Bach - Epiphany 1

Bach wrote several cantatas for the first Sunday after Epiphany; I chose this one for its uniqueness - BWV 32, Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen (Dearest Jesus, my desire, Leipzig 1726). This is one of Bach's dialogue cantatas, a solo cantata for two interacting voices. In this one he casts the story of Jesus in the Temple at age 12, and Mary's panic when she can't find him, as a dialogue between the soul (soprano) and Jesus (bass). The plaintive oboe solo, taken up by the soprano, at the very beginning sets the tone for the whole cantata. Here's the late Craig Smith of Emmanuel Music on this beautiful and intriguing cantata.

The cantata BWV 32 is perhaps the most perfect of all of the Bach "Dialogue" cantatas. The story of the twelve-year-old Jesus is here turned into a sophisticated dialogue between Christ and the soul. Here Mary's panic when she discovers Jesus is lost becomes the soul's panic at the loss of Jesus. The child Jesus is made a bass voice further abstracting this very personal and parochial story. The opening aria for soprano, oboe and strings is one of the great heavenly laments in all of Bach. Over calm string arpeggios the oboe weaves a chromatic and poignant melody. The soprano soon joins and the two weave amazingly expressive garlands over the inexorable strings. The bass voice Jesus asks why Mary is searching for him; doesn't she know that he is about his father's business? This beautiful arioso becomes an aria with solo violin, describing his father's mansions. The story of the twelve-year-old Jesus has always been associated with Psalm 84. In the following duet arioso, Jesus and Mary sing lines from that Psalm leading into the wonderful duet with oboe and strings. Here a bouncy yodeling motive that is both sung and played dominates the sparkling rhythmic drive. A simple four-voice version of "Freu dich sehr" concludes the work. 

© Craig Smith

Today's performance is by the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists under the direction of Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Enjoy!

Photo © 2015 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Sunday Bach - Epiphany

Today is Epiphany (aka Twelfth Night, aka Three Kings Day), a major festival in the Church Year, celebrating the visit to the infant Christ in Bethlehem by the three wise men from the East (or kings, as tradition sometimes has it). It's also the final day of the Twelve Days of Christmas; the Christmas season officially stops here. Bach wrote several cantatas for this festival, most notably the sixth and final cantata of his massive Christmas Oratorio. But of all the cantatas he wrote for the Christmas season, the one I've chosen for today is the only one actually telling the story of the events celebrated rather than focusing on the theology - BWV 65, Sie Werden aus Saba alle kommen (They will all come from Sheba, Leipzig 1724). And it's a beauty, incorporating all kinds of musical effects to act as a sort of soundtrack to the story of the Three Kings. Here's the late Craig Smith of Emmanuel Music on this unique cantata:

Many cantatas for the Christmas season are not deeply involved with the Christmas story, but assume a contemplative attitude with a minimum of narrative. The Cantata BWV 65 not only directly quotes Isaiah’s prediction of the Wise Men, but contrasts it with a chorale description of how that prediction came true. Thus, the unusual placement of a chorale immediately after the opening chorus sets off the principal thrust of the piece: the gifts of the Wise Men are a reflection of the gift of God in fulfilling the words of Isaiah. 

The opening chorus has a wonderful, exotic, “Eastern” sounding orchestration with pairs of recorders, oboes da caccia and horns as well as the usual strings and continuo. The loping 9/8 meter gives the piece a charming “camel music” quality. This cantata contains the only example of horns in C in all of Bach’s music. The beginning tutti shows the richness of color available to Bach with this combination of instruments. The sound of the piece comes not only from the exotic combination of instruments but also from the abundance of octave doublings. This interest in octaves culminates in the final cadence of the tutti, which contains a rarely-heard unison from the entire orchestra. The choral writing is marvelously varied with block-like writing, imitative writing, and a full-fledged choral fugue. In his book “The Compositional Process of J.S. Bach,” Robert Marshall describes ingeniously how Bach “thinks on his feet” in the writing of this fugue. In fact, one of the great glories of the first Jahrgang is the new way in which Bach is able to fold choral fugues into a more homophonic texture. This is particularly striking in a work such as this that has horns with few available chromatic notes. Bach makes an event out of the return of the horns to the orchestral texture by surprisingly overlapping them with the end of the fugue. 

The chorale that follows, a verse of “Ein Kind, geborn zu Bethelehem,” is austere, almost barren in its harmonization. It is as if the richness of Isaiah’s prophecy is contrasted with the meager circumstances of Christ’s birth. The recitative that follows is a classic example of Bach’s sensitivity to the shape and function of the text. The first half, which recounts the story of the wise men, begins in F major and modulates to G major. At the beginning of the contemplative section, where the speaker examines how these events affect him, the bass moves down to a six-four-two chord and sends the recitative in a harmonically different direction. 

Bach uses the dark sound of the two oboes da caccia as obbligati for the bass aria. Notice how the opening theme, so closely imitative and evocative of gold, is transformed into the gold torn from the earth by the drop of an octave at the end of the third line. The canon here is exclusively associated with the inadequacy of the gold offerings. The offering of the Christian’s heart is accompanied by euphonious parallel thirds in the obbligato instruments. 

The secco tenor recitative is appropriately didactic, and offers a perfect foil for the return to the extravagant orchestration that accompanies the opening of the next tenor aria. The main tune of this aria is clearly related to the opening idea of the chorus. Even more, the “oriental” octave doublings bring us back into that world. There is something popular in the character of this spirited piece. It is bar-form, something rather unusual in non-chorale related pieces in Bach. The simple folksy vocal writing at the beginning is a wonderful contrast to the exuberant melismas of the final section. 

Not only the choice of a verse from “Was mein Gott will, das g’scheh allzeit,” but also its austere harmonization, is surprising compared to the color of the rest of the cantata. Perhaps Bach is preparing us for the sobriety of the Epiphany season. Its simplicity is very much in keeping with the presentation of the other chorale, and gives us a slightly different relationship between the chorale and the concerted music that we are used to in first Jahrgang pieces.

© Craig Smith

Today's performance is from a recording by the Gabrieli Consort and Players under the direction of Paul McCreesh. Enjoy!

Photo © 2017 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Happy New Year!

I raise my glass and salute you all for the New Year. Slainte!

Photo © 2014 by A. Roy Hilbinger