Something for a Friday: All of Bach

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Herr Jesu Christ, wahr’ Mensch und Gott – Bach

Are Bach Cantatas Church Music or Chamber Music?

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Herr Jesu Christ, wahr’ Mensch und Gott – Bach

Are Bach Cantatas Church Music or Chamber Music?

Doesn't it depend upon the occasion for which they were written?

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All of Bach celebrates its first decade:

Behind the scenes:

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Wow, yes, that decade passed quickly!

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J.S. Bach - Cantata "Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal in das Reich Gottes eingehen", BWV 146.

Netherlands Bach Society cond. Jos van Veldhoven
Recorded 5th Oct 2013, published 23 May 2014

Conductor Jos van Veldhoven talks about the piece:

Performance:

Notes from the All of Bach website:

Yearning for Heaven

"Here on earth, life is miserable, but fortunately it does not last long, and then there is heaven.

‘Though you are sad, your sorrow will turn to joy’. These words from the sermon that was read in Leipzig on the third Sunday after Easter – Jubilate Sunday – sum up the message of this cantata. Here on earth, life is miserable, but fortunately it does not last long, and then there is heaven. The sorrow of earthly life is juxtaposed with the joy offered by faith and the promise of heaven.

The cantata begins fairly cheerfully, with a mini organ concerto as a sinfonia. But immediately afterwards, the misery on earth becomes audible as the singers have difficult lines filled with obstacles. The alto then turns aside from this terrible world and yearns for heaven. The heart of the cantata is formed by the emotional aria ‘Ich säe meine Zähren’, in which Bach illustrates the transition from the bitter present to the sweet future through minimal changes in the solo parts of the soprano, flute, and oboe d’amores. In the final duet and the closing chorale, all the suffering is forgotten."

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J.S. Bach - Jesu, meine Freude BWV 1105

Organist: Leo Van Doeselaar
Christian Müller organ, 1734
Walloon Church, Amsterdam,
Recorded 24th June 2014, released 25th September 2015.

Van Doeselaar talks about the piece:

Performance:

Notes from the All of Bach website:

"Listen to what I can do!

Bach’s creative impatience is conspicuous in his first setting of a popular chorale.

In this piece, we must resolutely set aside the severe image of Bach in a powdered wig (for a while at least). We have to imagine him as tradition-conscious, certainly self-assured, a true professional and... still a teenager! While it was not unusual for young musicians (especially those of the Bach family) to start composing themselves before their fifteenth birthday, in this chorale the young Sebastian far outstrips many of his teachers and their influences.

This is the first of Bach’s known works to use the chorale ‘Jesu, meine Freude’. As a diligent pupil wanting to show what he could do, the young composer tried out a different technique for each phrase. We thus hear imitation, echoes and a melody that jumps from soprano to alto to bass – techniques that also crop up later in the Orgelbüchlein. Take especial note of a rather curious effect, whereby the melody is twice stretched out beyond breaking point, creating an ideal moment for unusual, expressive chord combinations. A special timbre for Christmas time – for which this song was intended.

Neumeister Sammlung, BWV 1090-1120

At the end of 1984, the Bach world was turned upside down. In that year, no fewer than 31 undiscovered organ works by Bach turned up in the library of Yale University. They are included in a manuscript compiled by organist Johann Gottfried Neumeister (1756-1840), which ended up in the United States via Christian Heinrich Rinck and Lowell Mason. It is therefore known as the ‘Neumeister collection’.

Neumeister copied the larger part of his collection in 1790 from a much older manuscript that has been lost. He selected a variety of popular organ chorales that he could play himself for ordinary church services. The majority are works by two of Bach’s cousins, Johann Michael and Johann Christoph, as well as by Bach himself. There are also arrangements by Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow and Johann Pachelbel, among others. So in his collection, Neumeister gives an idea of the repertoire that would have been familiar to Bach in his younger years. Bach’s own compositions in the Neumeister collection are very old, dating mostly from before 1708 and probably even from around 1700, when Bach was about fifteen years old. Later, Neumeister added a further five chorales that were much newer, written by his own teacher Georg Andreas Sorge."