Bach, J.S.: Alto Cantatas, Vol. 1
$9.99
(COMPACT DISC)
In Stock - Usually ships within 24 hours.
Just copy this code and paste it where you want the link on your website:
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Sacred Cantatas for Alto Bach's cantatas make up the greatest body of his work, if imperfectly preserved and only later...
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Sacred Cantatas for Alto
Bach's cantatas make up the greatest body of his work,
if imperfectly preserved and only later successful in the
eyes of posterity. A total of some two hundred cantatas
have so far between confirmed, sacred as well as secular
functional music (seemingly only three fifths of all his
compositions in this genre), written by Bach in over four
decades.
The church cantatas are not only associated with the
particular readings for each Sunday and feast day in the
established church calendar, but also have particular
relevance to a leading principle of Lutheran theology,
the living proclamation of the Gospel. This, then, is all
to do with the word of God, that it is followed and that
it raises souls up and refreshes them so that they do not
become weary. For Luther, characteristically looking to
the simple and the young, that is the true purpose. To
this end he writes in 1526 that one must read, sing,
preach, write and write poetry, and 'if it were helpful
and necessary I would let it sound out with all the bells
and play out with all the organs and let everything that
can sound, sound out'. Hence music had its direct
legitimation in the Protestant rite and indeed in close
relationship with the central sermon. It was then
predetermined as an effective functional art, to drive the
word of God into hearts, as Luther demanded, and it did
this over the centuries in changing forms as 'florid
music' together with the obligatory congregational
singing. Motet forms, sacred concertos, the Protestant
song tradition and the influence of opera came together
in text and music in some complexity, until about 1700
the definitive form of what was possible was reached
(Konrad Küster). Here Bach entered with unparalleled
command and created a universe of overwhelming
artistic diversity.
This openness in the sense of a continuing
independence of musical 'church devotions' together
with formal traditions, as was generally perceived by
contemporaries and explored with varying degrees of
enthusiasm for experiment, is reflected also in Bach's
work indications. Given that he generally designated his
church pieces according to the plain annual church
calendar, he preferred to call them 'concerto'. The term
'cantata' appears only seldom and is found most, not
inadvertently, in the titles of his solo cantatas, for
example BWV 54, 56, 82 and 170. Although Bach here
too anticipates in masterly fashion each form, the use of
only a single voice part in alternating aria and recitative,
the integration of concertante elements as well as the
omission or mere indication of the congregational
chorus with the final chorale, relates these to the Italian
chamber cantata, to which the title 'Cantata' was then
given.
The works here included mark various stages in
Bach's writing of cantatas. While BWV 54 comes from
the composer's period at Weimar, BWV 170 and 169, as
parts of the so-called third Leipzig cycle, belong to a
later period. They have a virtuoso element in the
treatment of the organ as a solo instrument, which is a
characteristic of Bach's later years, like the unusual
form of the aria Bekennen will ich seinen Namen, BWV
200, setting verse by an unknown poet. The texts of
BWV 54 and 170 are taken from the cantata collection of
the Darmstadt court librarian Georg Christian Lehms's
Gottgefalliges Kirchen-Opffer (Church Offering
Pleasing to God) of 1711. The writer of the text of BWV
169 is unknown. The cantata fragment Schlage doch,
gewünschte Stunde, BWV 53, was formerly attributed to
Bach (namely by Forkel), but as a result of more recent
research is now thought to be the work of the Leipzig
organist Melchior Hoffmann and has therefore not been
included in the Neue Bach Gesamtausgabe.
Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust, BWV 170,
(Happy rest, beloved pleasure of the soul) was written in
1726 for the sixth Sunday after Trinity. Here Bach for
the first time uses the organ as an obbligato instrument
in a cantata, freeing it from the continuo group and
entrusting it with an independent (soloistic) function.
The central aria is as regards its musical meaning
especially obvious: 'Wie jammern mich doch die
verkehrten Herzen' ('How yet I pity hearts perverted')
writes Lehms, and plays therewith on a central message
of the text of the Sermon on the Mount (St Matthew 5,
20-26), the petty righteousness of the scribes and
pharisees in contrast with the Christian command for
reconciliation. Bach underlines this sad forsaking by
God of the unbeliever by witholding in the music the
bass foundation, which, in sacred baroque music, and
particularly in Bach's compositions, is the symbol of
firm faith. Violins and violas in unison form the
comparatively thin basis of the quartet movement filled
out by the solo alto and the organ part on two manuals.
A secco recitative, clear and scored with strings, comes
between the opening and closing arias, which serve one
another also as rhetorical antecedent and consequent.
It cannot be said for certain for which Sunday Bach
composed the cantata Widerstehe doch der Sünde, BWV
54, (Yet resist sin), since Lehms's text from the first
allows a variable application with its clear denunciation,
exposure and rejection of sin. As most probable terminal
dates to be considered, however, are the seventh Sunday
after Trinity or Oculi Sunday [the third Sunday in Lent],
on which there are readings on the theme of sin from St
Paul's Epistle to the Romans (Romans 6, 19-23) and his
Epistle to the Ephesians (Ephesians 5, 1-9). With two
arias framing a recitative the work represents the
simplest type of the form. Only violins and violas with
the continuo accompany the vocal part and form in the
first aria, through the division of the violas, a five-part
texture, while the second aria is an impressive fugato
four-part movement in free da capo form, the immediate
imaginative power of which is unequalled. Like a
dragon the 'Devil' waltzes in close chains of
semiquavers with the alto part. The contrite theme, at
first descending in semitones ('Wer - Sün -de - tut: E
flat, D, D flat, C) always presses on, until the place
where sin is abandoned, seemingly after resistance,
'with true devotion', and the Devil protests far below in
the bass. In this way, specifically through the total
spiritual penetration of the material, Bach has here, in all
the movements, far exceeded the seemingly limited
possibilities of a small-scale composition.
With the composition of the cantata Gott soll allein
mein Herze haben, BWV 169, (God alone shall have my
heart), for the eighteenth Sunday after Trinity,
generously scored for three oboes, strings, obbligato
organ and basso continuo, Bach, in 1726, fell back again
on a lost instrumental concerto written earlier. Both the
introductory Sinfonia and the second aria represent new
versions of this original material that later was used
again for the Harpsichord Concerto in E major, BWV
1053. A simple chorale on the melody of Luther's Nun
bitten wir den heiligen Geist (Now we pray the Holy
Ghost) forms the conclusion.
In Schlage doch, gewünschte Stunde, BWV 53,
(Strike then, desired hour), at the beginning of the aria,
which is only part of a larger mourning cantata, the
orchestral ritornello states, in heavily breathing 3/2
metre, slowed by pauses, the material of the text setting,
based on a descending E major triad, and then makes
room over the dominant pedal for a violin rocking
motion, which later forms the second section of the
simple da capo form; a rocking motion that could be
taken also as symbolic expression for the tolling of the
bells. Yet 'two little bells' are here the chief attraction of
an otherwise rather unpretentious composition with two
violins, one viola and basso continuo. Threefold
repetition of the first two lines of the text with constant
shortening of the note values in the first part and the
sometimes very high tessitura of the vocal part in the
second part of the aria duly show the urgency of the
desire for death to its best advantage.
In face of the unusual formal structure of the aria
Bekennen will ich seinen Namen, BWV 200, (I will
acknowledge his name), it is the more regrettable that
we have here only a fragment of a late Bach cantata,
written about 1740 for the Feast of the Purification. In
contrast to the complete surviving cantatas on a similar
subject here it is not Simeon's desire for death that
stands in the foreground but the acknowledgement of the
Lord by all people. Two obbligato violins accompany
the solo alto through a concise movement, in neither
concerto nor da capo form, but a four-part movement in
bar-form with homophonic and imitative passages.
Peter Reichelt
English version by Keith Anderson
Vergnugte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust, BWV 170 (more info)
-
Aria: Vergnugte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust (Alto) - 6:16
-
Recitativo: Die Welt, das Sundenhaus (Alto) - 1:13
-
Aria: Wie jammern mich doch die verkehrten Herzen (Alto) - 6:20
-
Recitativo: Wer sollte sich demnach wohl hier (Alto) - 1:00
-
Aria: Mir ekelt mehr zu leben (Alto) - 5:33
Widerstehe doch der Sunde, BWV 54 (more info)
-
Aria: Widerstehe doch der Sunde (Alto) - 7:05
-
Recitativo: Die Art verruchter Sunden (Alto) - 1:14
-
Aria: Wer Sunde tut, der ist von Teufel (Alto) - 2:54
Gott soll allein mein Herze haben, BWV 169 (more info)
-
Sinfonia - 7:51
-
Arioso: Gott soll allein mein Herze haben (Alto) - 2:08
-
Aria: Gott soll allein mein Herze haben (Alto) - 5:26
-
Recitativo: Was ist die Liebe Gottes (Alto) - 0:45
-
Aria: Stirb in mir Welt (Alto) - 4:45
-
Recitativo: Doch meint es auch dabei (Alto) - 0:23
-
Chorale: Du susse Liebe - 1:05
Bekennen will ich seinen Namen, BWV 200 (more info)
-
Aria: Bekennen will ich seinen Namen (Alto) - 2:33
Schlage doch, gewunschte Stunde, BWV 53 (more info)
-
Schlage doch gewunschte Stunde, BWV 53 - 5:49