Knowing the steps to create living growth: that is art. - Deng Ming-Dao
Chorales
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.
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:
