So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. - Psalm 90:12
Chorales
2006, May 27
Ich dank Dir schon durch meinen Sohn
Story sent in by a reader. I think it is a terribly sad story. She found the melody on my site in BWV 349.
I have been looking for a song my ancestor wrote lyrics to in 1686! He was a Salzburg Lutheran exile named Joseph Schaitberger, and was kicked out of his homeland for his religion along with his wife and fellow believers.
The authorities held back any children under 12, and he had to leave 2 tiny daughters behind. It broke his wife’s heart and she died within a year of exile. He wrote a famous song and it was sung by the bigger group of Salzburg exiles in 1732-33 (20,000 of them). They sang it as they left their homeland. Their children sang it for decades in school.
After 3 years of searching, I found out that the melody was based on a hymn written in Leipzig in 1586 called Ich dank Dir schon durch meinen Sohn.
Linda Schaitberger, Maine
2006, May 22
Chorales - the English Translations
This is a repost of an earlier entry. I had to delete the original as it was comment spammed. People often ask for English words for the chorales. This book has the largest set of singable translations into English, by C.S. Terry.
Instrum/voices code: va01 vc01 vd01 vf01
Author: Bach, Johann Sebastian, 1685-1750.
Title: [Chorales. English & German]
Title: The four-part chorals of J. S. Bach, with the German
text of the hymns and English translations. Edited
with an historical introduction, notes and critical
appendices by Charles Sanford Terry.
Imprint: London, New York, Oxford University Press [1964]
Physical Description: xxv, close score (539 p.) facsims. (incl. music) port. 27 cm.
Note: “First published 1929. Reprinted (with a new foreword) 1964.”
Subject (LC): Chorales.
Subject (Other): SP8 CSUG AMLG
Added author: Terry, Charles Sanford, 1864-1936.
MUSIC CALL NUMBER COPY LOCATION
1)M3.1 .B11 C52T 1964 1 SCORES
Bach's Organ Mass - Kyrie
The Kyrie, Christe, and Kyrie, the large and the small, the first section of the Lutheran mass.
I think I have bitten off a bit more than I can chew with this project. Not only is the music long and difficult, the first section is very un-Bach like. Unlike the chorales which are structured on repeating verses and four measure phrases, this music is based on chant, so is very much "through composed".
This makes entering the music more difficult, as it is easier to lose your place in the score. There just aren't as many landmarks, no nice cadences that make for comfortable navigation through the music.
After this large section, I will tackle next the pieces I find more congenial first, so parts will not appear in order. If the whole thing becomes more than I can handle, I will refer to James Pressler's work. I will always include a link to his files.
All the Great Organ Mass on one page.
2006, April 30
Bach's Organ Mass
Taking off on a very large project, exploring the twenty-one chorales of the Third Part of the Keyboard Practice, or Dritter Theil der Clavier Übung, BWV 669-BWV 689.
Bach wrote a set of twenty-one organ chorale settings for the German Organ Mass, the Lutheran church service for which he wrote so much music. Some were large and some were small and Bach published them in his Third Part of the Keyboard Practice.
I hope to listen to recordings and to make midi files of at least the smaller pieces, learning about them as I go. I intend to post as I go along on this complex investigation.
Exploration - practical investigation and analysis which leads to knowledge, skills and understanding. Exploration may arise from the needs of a given situation, but may also be stimulated by curiosity, extending personal vocabulary or style, and may result in unexpected, unusual or innovative outcomes. (Definition from the wikipedia)
Some links:
Order of the Lutheran Mass in Leipzig
2006, March 31
Ten years on the Web
JSBChorales.net 10 years old today.
A Brombaugh Organ in Eugene Oregon
Ten years ago today I uploaded the first version of JSBChorales.net with sets of midi files of the 4-part chorales to download.
To celebrate the anniversary, here are some more favorites from James Pressler and QuickTime files from JSBChorales.net.
From James Pressler (click on the headphone icon):
Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, the first Schübler Chorale, BWV 645
Erbarm dich mein, o Herre Gott, BWV 721
Herzlich thut mich verlangen, BWV 727
From JSBChorales.net:
Ach bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 649
Kommst du nun, Jesu, vom Himmel herunter, BWV 650
Here are many more organ links and articles.
2006, March 21
Bach's Birthday 2006
For J.S. Bach's birthday, 321 years, some favorites.
Gottfried Silbermann biography
From James Pressler (click on the headphone icon):
Canonic Variations on Vom Himmel hoch, BWV 769
Prelude and Fugue in G, BWV 541
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.
