No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other. - Jascha Heifetz
2008, May 18
Trinity Sunday 2008
Cantatas for Trinity Sunday
For Trinity Sunday, Bach wrote three cantatas. He also revived BWV 194 on Trinity Sunday, June 4, 1724; it had originally been written for an organ consecration on November 2, 1723.
Take your pick.
2008, May 11
Whit Sunday 2008
Pentecost, the fiftieth day after Easter with J.S. Bach and Alexander Sadoyan..
Painting by Alexander Sadoyan.
For today, Pentecost or Whit Sunday, we have BWV 172, "Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten!" ("Ring out, you songs, resound, you strings!"), a favorite of mine, which concludes with a four part chorale with a wonderful violin obligato. It was written for Pentecost Sunday in May 1714, so is one of Bach's early cantatas. He also played it several times in Leipzig with some alterations.
Alfred Dürr says of this cantata: "All the various changes he made show how much trouble Bach took over a work which—as the number of documented performances (at least four) suggests—he seems to have particularly loved."
I have several performances of this cantata: Leusink, Leonhardt, Koopman, Suzuki, Rifkin, Gardiner and Rilling. The large number of performances available is another indication of the popularity and appeal of this cantata. The opening chorus is very festive; it puts me in mind of the opening movement of the Christmas Oratorio.
The six parts of the cantata are:
opening chorus
bass recitative with a low C at the end
bass aria
tenor aria
alto-soprano aria with the chorale "Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott" in the instruments
closing chorale with violin obligato.
As for the low C discussed at such great length on the Bach Cantatas Website, it is most audible on the Suzuki performance, but all the basses do well. The most joyous performance for me is Rifkin's. His choice of one voice and one instrument per part also allows the violin obligato to shine through on the final chorale.
BWV 172 Complete cantata by Leusink
Listen to the closing chorale with the soundfont JEUX, by John W. McCoy.
The closing chorale by Leusink, BWV 172.6
A discussion of the melody of BWV 172.6
Discussions of the Cantata
Notes from the Bach Cantatas Website p. 1
Notes from the Bach Cantatas Website p. 2
Notes from the Bach Cantatas Website p. 3
Notes from Craig Smith
Translation by Craig Smith
2008, May 04
A Cross Quarter Day
A cold day in Los Osos.
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Two egrets stand in the chilly wind with necks contracted to keep warm. It doesn't really seem like Spring, much less the beginning of Summer in the old calendar. It feels like a California winter day and I am barely comfortable wearing a jacket with a wool lining.
Moro Rock is in the overcast distance.
However, cold as it is, I am having a very nice visit with my daughter and granddaughter.
2008, May 01
The Ascension
The Feast of the Ascension with Medieval Wall Painting in English Parish Churches and Bach's Cantata BWV 37, Wer da gläubet und getauft wird.
I was captivated by this wonderful photo by T. Marshall of a wall painting in Seething, Norfolk. I love the feet disappearing into the void, perhaps a cloud, or perhaps there was a full figure originally and it has been obliterated. I love the warmth and color and the suggestion of the upwards watching friends and family below. Very likely this painting was detailed when created originally, but I believe its charm has grown with the passing of centuries.
I have just begun listening to cantata BWV 37, and am growing to love it. This cantata dedicated to faith is not grand, but is written on a small scale. There is a gentle energy in all parts of the music. There is no sense of triumphant gladness, but rather a quiet confidence in the friend who is going before. I especially appreciate the third movement which is a duet by Soprano and Alto on the chorale melody "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern", which appears again soon on Whit (Pentecost) Sunday. I am also very fond of the oboe obligato in the bass aria; much of the energy and forward movement comes from this reed instrument used so often by Bach.
Part two is a tenor aria which originally had a violin obligato accompaniment which has been lost. I favor the violin parts in the Harnoncourt and the Gardiner edition, both possibly written by Alfred Dürr at different times. I do not have the score for any of the violin parts which show up in the excerpts below and the liner notes do not address this issue (a shame). In his book The Cantatas of J.S. Bach, Mr. Dürr says: "…with the aid of thematic material developed in the tenor and continuo parts, it may be reconstructed well enough for no breach of style to be apparent and without the overall impression suffering from its failings." I feel the violin parts as presented in these recordings live up to this expectation.
Music Samples
BWV 37 Complete cantata by Leusink
Excerpts
BWV 37.1 Opening Chorus by Harnoncourt
BWV 37.2 Tenor Aria: Leusink with tenor and continuo, no violin
BWV 37.2 Tenor Aria: Koopman with tenor, continuo and violin (written by Koopman)
BWV 37.2 Tenor Aria: Harnoncourt with tenor, continuo and violin (?written by A. Dürr)
BWV 37.2 Tenor Aria: Gardiner with tenor, continuo and violin (?written by A. Dürr)
BWV 37.3 Chorale Soprano and Alto: Leusink
BWV 37.3 Chorale Soprano and Alto: Harnoncourt
BWV 37.3 Chorale Soprano and Alto: Gardiner
BWV 37.3 Chorale Soprano and Alto: Koopman
BWV 37.4 Bass Recitive: Leusink
BWV 37.5 Bass Aria: Leusink
BWV 37.6 Chorale: Leusink
BWV 37.6 Chorale: Score
Discussions of the Cantata
Notes from the Bach Cantatas Website
Notes from Craig Smith
Notes from Simon Crouch
Translation by Craig Smith
2008, April 22
Cross relation
A 'true' cross relation in measure 3 in a chorale from BWV 114.
Note: Revision and correction to the analysis below, posted May 26, 2008.
In BWV 114.7, measure 3 and measure 7, beat 1 to 2 in the tenor and bass have an E flat in the tenor and an E natural in the bass. The NBA edition and the Barenreiter edition of the chorales show a courtesy accidental on the E flat which does not appear in Kalmus or the Budapest edition. I surmise this is to reinforce the unexpected notation of this true cross relation.
So, why might Bach have done this? The phrase is in g minor; the bass starts on the tonic, leaps up to the dominant, climbs by the ascending minor scale to the tonic, then descends by the descending minor scale to the fourth, steps up to the dominant, then falls back down to the tonic where it started. The tenor starts on the tonic, steps down to the leading tone (the raised seventh of the scale), leaps up to the lowered sixth degree of the g minor scale, then steps downward to the tonic, then down to the leading tone, and back up to the tonic. Two very elegant melodic lines.
Listen to the bass line
Listen to the tenor line
When these two melodic lines are played against one another a harmonic progression results, which I speculate might be read as shown in the above analysis.
Listen to bass and tenor together
Listen to the complete phrase
Here is an excellent site for a discussion of harmonic progressions.
Home page for Robert Frank's Theory on the Web.
Wikipedia definition of a cross relation
2008, April 15
Piñon Pine
New growth on the Piñon Pine seedling, sure sign of spring.
2008, April 11
New mp3 files
Thank you, John W. McCoy, now there can be MP3 files of the four part chorales played on an organ.
I have become very tired of the synthesized instrument sounds in QuickTime available for the sound files of my chorales. I long for a great baroque church organ sound, like that used by James Pressler on the Virtual Baroque website. Of course, his files are created with Hauptwerk and it would cost $430 for the most minimal hardware and software to run this on my computer. Add to that, I am not an organist and do not understand the program, and the learning curve would be about a year just to set up some four part chorales.
So I looked around for another program. Windows users have a SourceForge program called MyOrgan, but no Mac version, or even a Linux version. Then I stumbled on Soundfonts.
Thanks to John W. McCoy there is a free organ soundfont, JEUX, available on the web.
As instructed, I loaded the JEUX organ soundfont into the ~/Library/Audio/Sounds/Banks in my Mac, then chose the Advanced tab in QuickTime preferences and chose Jeux as the default synthesizer. Voila, a new set of sounds. I selected a set of voices I liked, saved the .mov file, then converted it to an MP3 in iTunes.
The soundfont with QuickTime is free, and it will give me room to experiment with different stops. The list of organ stops for the Jeux soundfont is here.
Listen to the mp3: BWV 264 Als der gütige Gott vollenden wollt sein Wort
2008, March 31
Twelve years on the Web
Today marks the twelfth anniversary of the chorales on the web.
Twelve years ago today, the four part harmonized chorales were made available on the web for download. There have been years of revisions and corrections, thanks to many readers. At that time there were a few other people involved in Bach websites, Dave Grossman, and Jan Koster and Jan Hanford at JSBach.org. Since then many, many people have contributed to websites with music files, biographical information, discussions of Bach's works and their recordings. There is also much literature pertaining to the theory of the music: fugue, counterpoint, and the practices of harmony.
The web has truly become a great resource, thanks to all the people involved in these seriously important sites.
