Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not. - Carl Jung
Chorales
2006, February 26
James Pressler, Organist
James Pressler has created mp3 files of the complete Bach organ work and many files from many other composers.
Thanks to an email from Ralph Hancock, I found this site of mp3 files created by a retired(?) organist. One of my favorite pieces is BWV 733. James says this piece is "for full organ and pedal, which takes a long time to come in, but is worth the wait"
The files are created on the computer with the virtual organ software Hauptwerk Virtual Pipe Organ. This software uses sounds sampled from organs from all over the world to create the effect of a real pipe organ in your own home.
This is a very expensive specialized piece of software, requiring that a person be very knowledgeable and experienced with organs and computers. James Pressler certainly fills that bill. His interesting and helpful comments about each file also help me to understand the music, the composers and the baroque era.
If you subscribe, Mr. Pressler will send you a daily and-or weekly email with a fresh organ piece for listening. I have subscribed, and thank him very much for his work.
The links:
Canonic Variations BWV 769 on Virtual Organ
2006, January 29
BWV 1102 - A Neumeister Chorale - Tiger and QuickTime
Prince of Peace, Lord Jesus Christ (Du Friedefurst, Herr Jesu Christ)
I got a request from a reader, Ralph Hancock, for the Neumeister chorale, BWV 1102 last week and have been playing around with it since. I have made some discoveries and learned some new things.
The first thing I learned was that QuickTime 7 has lost the ability to choose an instrument for each track. This is very annoying since this is 99% of the reason I buy (and keep on buying) this program. However, QuickTime 6.5, which allows selection of instruments, will not install on the 10.4 (Tiger) Mac OS. So what to do?
Well, I partitioned my hard drive before upgrading to Tiger, because I really didn't think it would work and I wanted to be able to put Panther (10.3) on the other partition just in case. This turned out to be a very smart move. I found from a blog entry that if QT 6.5 is installed on Panther on one partion, it will run under Tiger in the other partition. So I tried it.
I installed Panther with QT 6.5 on the empty partion. I put an alias of QT 6.5 on the Tiger desktop (so I wouldn't mix it up with QT 7 in the dock).
Tiger was running fine on its partion, all the software I use was running fine, so now came the big test. Will QuickTime 6.5 run while I am booted up from Tiger?
Yes, yes, it works. I am very happy that it works, even though this was a major hassle to keep the functions that should have been left in the program in the first place.
QuickTime 6.5 does indeed run while booted up in Tiger if it is installed in Panther on another partition. In fact, both QTs will run at the same time under Tiger.
The second thing I learned is that Finale from Coda allows playback of changes of tempo, something I had not tried before. So I learned how, a very non-intuitive process hidden in the Text Expression tool. This was very satisfying. Probably this capacity has existed for a long time, but I have not explored enough to find it.
The file I made for Ralph has a very subtle change in tempo, so it is not immediately apparent that anything new has been learned, but trust me, it was.
Here is the version of BWV 1102, Du Friedefurst, Herr Jesu Christ.
2005, December 12
From Heaven Above - A Christmas Hymn
From Heaven Above to Earth I Come (Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her)
The words of the hymn were written by Martin Luther, for his five year old son. The hymn has 15 verses.
Luther originally used the melody of a tavern song "Ich komm aus fremden Landen her" for his words, but later the tune was "ejected" from the hymnbooks because of the tavern associations. The anonymous melody currently in use was chosen by Johann Walther in 1551.
The original melody Luther chose.
The current melody Walther chose.
Some people claim that there is a reference to this melody in BWV 127.1, but to my mind it is a stretch. "In the very first 5 measures, Bach establishes Christ’s descent with an untexted musical reference to the famous Christmas chorale by Luther “Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her” [“From heaven on high, that’s where I come from.”] by having the highest-sounding instruments (recorders, in this instance) representing the heights of heaven begin in the very first measure with a vague attempt (the first interval drop is ‘tonal’ rather than ‘real’ – it is a full-step/tone down rather than just a half-step/tone down in the original melody."
Comment from: Schweitzer: Believing, as he said, that "the devil does not need all the good tunes for himself", Luther formed his Christmas hymn "Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her" out of the melody of the riddle-song "Ich komm aus fremden Landen her" - in which the singer propounds a riddle and takes her garland from the maiden who cannot solve it [8]. Afterwards, however, he had to let the devil have the melody back again, for even after its conversion it haunted every dancing-place and every tavern. In 1551 Walther ejected it from the hymn-book, replacing it by the tune to which Luther's Christmas hymn is sung to this day [9].
[9] Böhme was the first to conjecture that the ground of the ejectment
of the first melody was its profane power of resistance See Zelle p.
49. The new melody - the one now current - (Bach V, No. 49 and pp. 92
ff.) is found in a Leipzig hymn-book as early as 1539.
Here is an article discussing the Chorale, its development and its use in the Lutheran litergy.
| The music: | BWV 248.9 | A four part chorale with orchestral interludes between phrases. | |
| BWV 248.17 | A four part chorale. | ||
| BWV 248.23 | A four part chorale with orchestral interludes between phrases. | ||
| BWV 606 | An organ chorale. | ||
| BWV 700 | An organ chorale. | ||
| BWV 701 | An organ chorale. | ||
| BWV 738 | An organ chorale. | ||
| The Vom Himmel hoch Variations: | BWV 769.1 | ||
| BWV 769.2 | |||
| BWV 769.3 | |||
| BWV 769.4 | |||
| BWV 769.5 |
MP3 files of these chorales are available. If you want one, leave me a note in a comment with your email address and I will send it. Unfortunately, the files are too large to put them on my ftp server for general distribution.
Some names under which this chorale is known:
Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her
From Heaven Above to Earth I Come
Translations from the Emmanuel Music website:
2005, October 14
BWV 1.6 Organ Trio
BWV 1.6 corrections and a wonderful organ trio arrangement.
Hermann Scheuber, a gentleman in Switzerland who is retired and an organ student, downloaded the midi file for BWV 1.6 and made an arrangement for the organ.
He omitted the alto, the tenor and the first horn part so that he was left with an organ trio made up of the soprano chorale in the right hand, the second horn part as an obligato in the left hand, and the bass in the pedal.
Here is a QuickTime file of the resulting trio.
When three parts were omitted, I was able to hear the second horn part more clearly and realized there was a mistake in the file that went back through the years to the original file and ran through the midi, the QuickTime and the PDF files.
So because of Hermann's work I have been able to post all new corrected files for this chorale. It is wonderful how people are using the files; I always appreciate the feedback I get.
- Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh' darein
- BWV 1.6 midi
- BWV 1.6 QuickTime
- BWV 1.6 PDF
- BWV 1.6 Organ Trio QuickTime
- BWV 1.6 Organ Trio PDF
(Wie schön leuchtet der morgenstern)
2005, September 07
Lord Hear my Deepest Longing
Lord Hear my Deepest Longing (Herzlich tut mich verlangen)
This chorale melody is attributed to Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612), 1601. Bach used the melody in the following eleven settings.
| BWV 135.6 | A four part chorale. | BWV 161.6 | A four part chorale. |
| BWV 244.15 | A four part chorale from St. Matthew Passion. | ||
| BWV 244.17 | Another four part chorale from St. Matthew Passion. | ||
| BWV 244.44 | Another four part chorale from St. Matthew Passion. | ||
| BWV 244.54 | Another four part chorale from St. Matthew Passion. | ||
| BWV 244.62 | Another four part chorale from St. Matthew Passion. | ||
| BWV 248.5 | A four part chorale from the Christmas Oratorio. | ||
| BWV 248.64 | Another four part chorale from the Christmas Oratorio. | ||
| BWV 270 | A four part chorale. | ||
| BWV 271 | Another four part chorale. |
MP3 files of these chorales are available. If you want one, leave me a note in a comment with your email address and I will send it. Unfortunately, the files are too large to put them on my ftp server for general distribution.
Some names under which this chorale is known:
Herzlich tut mich verlangen
Lord Hear my Deepest Longing
Discussions from the Bach Cantatas website:
Discussions from the Emmanuel Music website:
2005, July 18
BWV 650 Corrected
Schübler chorale 6, Come thou, Jesu, from heaven to earth (Kommst du nun, Jesu, vom Himmel herunter)
This morning I realized that the QT file of the sixth Schübler chorale has the chorale melody an octave too low. I missed the organ pedal marking, 4 fuss, meaning that it sounds an octave higher than written.
Since it is an alto aria, this makes sense, since it would be in the wrong range as I had it.
Here is the corrected file:
And since I have developed a fondness for the chorale an octave lower, here is the uncorrected version.
