Luogo e data di registrazione		MS&AD Shirakawa Hall, Nagoya (Japan) - July 2011
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer | Engineer		Andreas Ruge | Matthias Spitzbarth | Akimi Hayashi
	Edizione CD		BIS - BIS-SACD-1971 - (1 CD) - durata 74' 40" - (p) & (c) 2012 - DDD
	Note		-

COMMENTARY

Along side Bach’s production of church music – around 200 cantatas, the oratorios, masses and motets – his secular vocal works occupy a modest place in his output. Today we know of the existence of some fifty secular cantatas, but only about half of these have survived in performable condition. The original total of such works was probably significantly larger, but it seems that the secular cantatas in particular had a habit of going astray. They were occasional pieces, mostly tailored especially to the situation that engendered them – und thus (unlike the church cantatas) they could not be performed again in unaltered form in other circumstances. Thus, for Bach’s heirs, they were of little practical interest. Their close association with a unique festive occasion, with specific people, the conventions of the time and historical circumstances is a further reason why Bach’s secular cantatas have to this day remained overshadowed by his sacred works. In addition, modern listeners are often unfamiliar with the context (especially the mythological context) of the subject mat ter – which once would have been common knowledge. Furthermore, an important role is played by a prejudice dating back to the nineteenth century: the belief that Bach’s true artistry manifested itself in his church music, whilst his secular compositions were from an artistic point of view merely by-products of minor importance. This narrow-minded view has, however, long been dis proved. In Bach there is no difference in quality between sacred and secular music. Bach always approached the challenges inherent in commissioned works of a secular nature with the same artistic vigour that we find in his church music. All of the surviving secular cantatas testify to this, including the two works on this recording. Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd - What Gives Me Pleasure Is Only The Lively Hunt, BWV208 Bach’s ‘Hunt’ Cantata is his earliest surviving secular cantata. It takes us to 1713 and Weimar, where the composer had worked since 1708 as court organist, and from Weimar it immediately takes us onwards to Weißenfels, where the birthday of Duke Christian of Sachsen-Weißenfels (1682–1736) was celebrated on 23rd February of each year. In fact the celebrations were not confined to that day alone, but went on for days or even weeks – and, as the Duke was passionate about hunting, the celebrations were always associated with hunt gatherings. This cantata was heard at the birthday celebrations in 1713 ‘after a hunt ing contest at the Prince’s hunting lodge, as musique de table’ – at least according to a volume of poetry published in 1716 by Salomo Franck (1659–1725), author of the cantata’s text, who was employed at the Weimar court. The performance probably took place after the festive programme at Weißenfels; in the court records for this day we find the remark: ‘Pleasure hunt… In the evening a banquet in the hunt ing lodge’. The cantata’s outline was fine-tuned for its position in the festive programme. The preceding ‘hunting contest’ provided the poet with a keyword from which he developed a modest dramatic plot in which four divinities from ancient mythology appear, offering birth day congratulations. It is set in motion by Diana, goddess of the hunt, who avows her zeal for hunting and – with a hint of a flattering sideways glance towards the Duke – declares the hunt to be the domain of the gods and goddesses. Next Endymion arrives, Diana’s lover, with the gift of eternal youth. He feels neglected and remonstrates with Diana, but she explains to him that on this day she must devote herself entirely to the Duke. Thereupon they decide to bring the Duke a ‘tribute of joy’. Pan, the goat-footed god of the forests and fields, appears and, as a sign of his subservience, places his shepherd’s crook before the Duke, paying him the compliment that, as ‘durchlauchter Pan’ (‘illustrious Pan’) (thus in a sense a princely fellow-god) he imbues the country with joy and happiness. Indeed – as he continues, in exag gerated terms – a country without its prince would be like a lifeless body without a soul. Pales, the goddess of shepherds and fields, joins the ranks of wellwishers, praising the Duke’s abilities as a ruler with the image of a good shepherd in whose care the sheep safely graze, i.e. his subjects live happily in peace and calm. Diana calls for everyone to shout ‘Vivat’, and everyone joins in: ‘Lebe, Sonne dieser Erden’ (‘Live, sun of this earth’). This concludes the main part of the plot. In a sort of concluding tableau, Diana and Endymion (as a duet), Pales and Pan (each with a solo aria) all convey their congratulations one more time, before joining together in the finale to sing of the ‘freudigen Stunden’ (‘joyful hours’) and future happiness. Bach has done his bit to endow the scenario with variety and rich tonal colours. The aria portraying Diana’s arrival is accompanied by two hunting horns – symbols of princely rank as well as of the Duke’s pas sion for hunting – which later also play a prominent role in the cantata’s two tutti movements. Although Endymion’s first aria is backed by continuo alone, the continuo writing itself features an agile, skilful basso ostinato, which illustrates Love’s ‘traps’ (as described in the text) with intricate rhythms and melodies. In Pan’s first aria, he is allocated a trio of oboes which, with its fanfare-like opening ritornello, alludes to the princely rank of the celebrant. Pales, in her first aria, is accompanied by recorders – typical shepherds’ instruments. Moreover, Bach strikes a folk-like tone: the two recorders move simply in thirds and sixths; the pedal-point-like beginning from the basso continuo alludes to the sound of bagpipes; and the vocal part has the character more of a song than of an aria. The congratulatory chorus ‘Lebe, Sonne dieser Erden’, intoned by all the singers, begins in the manner of a canon for communal singing, but then makes way for the instruments in a songful, homophonic middle section that contrasts with the polyphonic, concertante opening. In their duet, Diana and Endymion display unity through the constant parallel writing of their vocal lines, accompanied by the sweeping arabesques of a solo violin. Virtuosic continuo writing characterizes Pales’ second aria, whilst that of Pan features dance-like rhythms. The final chorus is imbued with charm and harmony. In the process, a leading role is given to the two horns. A signal-like horn motif is heard at the beginning and runs through the entire instrumental writing – which, however, is dominated throughout by the lively interplay of the two horns, three oboes and strings (plus bassoon). The predominantly homophonic vocal writing strikes a cheerful, gracious tone; only in passing does Bach briefly emphasize the words ‘was Trauren besieget’ (‘what conquers sadness’) with a darkening of the harmony. Bach must have valued this work highly: he had it performed on at least two subsequent occasions in honour of other people, with minor adjustments to the text. He also used ‘parody’ versions of various movements in sacred cantatas, for example in 1725, when he incorporated Pan’s first aria, and – in extensively modified form – Pales’ second aria into the cantata Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt (BWV 68: movements 4 and 2). Similarly, in 1728 he used the finale of the birthday cantata as an introductory chorus in the cantata Man singet mit Freuden (BWV 149); much later, in 1740, he reused the same movement as the final chorus of the election cantata Herrscher des Himmels, König der Ehren (BWV Anh. 193 – now lost). Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht - Time, Maker of Days and Years, BWV 134a The years 1717–23, during which Bach was employed as Hofkapellmeister in the service of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen (1694–1728), were the only period in his career during which he had no duties to perform as regards church music. The court was Reformist and, as figurative music had no place in Calvinist church services, we do not have any sacred cantatas from this time. Bach did, however, write secular cantatas for specific occasions, in particular congratulatory cantatas for New Year’s Day and for the Prince’s birthday on 10th December. Six of each fell within Bach’s period of work in Köthen, so twelve such cantatas ought to have been composed. Only two, however, have survived in their entirety: BWV 134a and BWV 173a. For two others we possess only the texts (BWV Anh. 6 and 7), although clear traces of them can be found in three ‘parody’ cantatas from the composer’s Leipzig period (BWV 66/66a, BWV184/184a and BWV 194/194a). In addition, the two Köthen cantatas that have survived intact were also parodied in Leipzig. A reworked version of the present cantata – Ein Herz, das seinen Jesum lebend weiß, BWV 134 – was performed there on Easter Sunday of 1724, and a few weeks later, on the second day of Whitsun, the Köthen birthday cantata Durchlauchtster Leopold, BWV 173a, was reused as Erhöhtes Fleisch und Blut, BWV 173. In the course of preparing the parody version, the original score of the present cantata was damaged. The entire first movement and much of the second and third as well, was lost, with the consequence that the work was listed only as a fragment in the complete edition produced by the Bachgesellschaft in 1881. At around the same time, however, the Bach researcher Philipp Spitta (1841–1894) discovered a copy of the text in a collection of poetry, which provided at least a complete picture of the wording of the cantata. Not until the 1950s, in the course of work on the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, did researchers become aware of a partial manuscript, evidently prepared at Bach’s instigation, which contained a copy of the missing passages. This manuscript contains only the music, without the text; but the text can easily be filled in from the contemporary printed version. Together, therefore, the three pieces of the puzzle come together to produce the complete work. The contemporary printed version of the text tells us about the cantata’s occasion and purpose. It is included in a collection of poetry published in Halle in 1719 as ‘Salutation to the New Year 1719, to the Most Serene House of Anhalt-Cöthen’, the work of a certain ‘Menantes’. ‘Menantes’ was in fact the editor of the collection himself, Christian Friedrich Hunold (1680–1721), a prominent figure in German literature of the period. The cantata’s libretto is set out in dialogue form. As the dialogue partners Hunold has chosen two allegorical figures, ‘Time’ and ‘Divine Providence’: the former looks back into the past; the latter looks forward into the future. These changing perspectives give rise to a lengthy conversation that places the past, present and future of the country and its Prince in a most flattering light. As is stated in their duet aria, ‘Time’ and ‘Divine Providence’ enjoy a friendly rivalry when it comes to presenting the principality’s past and future as a golden age. The musical character of the work is largely determined by the four aria movements. With its dance-like rhythms, ‘Time’s’ first aria, after the brief opening recitative in which the two protagonists introduce themselves, is infused with the spirit of courtly music. It epitomizes the passepied, a fashionable dance at the time, described by Bach’s learned Hamburg contemporary Johann Mattheson (1681–1764) in Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739) as a pleasant ‘frivolity’ – intending it in the positive sense of the word as ‘joyful grace’, which is certainly radiated by the text and music of this exhortation to grate ful praise of God. If the first aria made use of the full orchestra, the instrumental part in the duet of ‘Time’ and ‘Divine Providence’ is allocated to the strings, corresponding with the text: ‘This lovely conflict moves our hearts to touch the strings…’ in a metaphorical way typical of the baroque period. The strings are then indeed touched with some vigour, especially by the first violin, which – in the manner of a perpetuum mobile – brings the concept of ‘konzertieren’ to the fore – and the musically well-educated Prince would have understood the image: the original meaning of the word concertare was ‘to fight each other’. In the following aria, the only one in a minor key, ‘Providence’ utters a promise. Bach clothes the meditative words in a simple musical setting, accompanied only by the continuo above a basso ostinato, the constant repetitions of which lend the text emphasis and a solemn earnestness. In the final movement Bach returns not only to the key but also to the dance-like metre of the beginning. The full orchestra is now joined by four vocalists, and ‘Time’ and ‘Providence’ – in a lively alternation of soloists and choir, and with the same ‘frivolity’ as in the first aria – sing of the ‘glückseligen Zeiten’ (‘joyous times’) of the house of Anhalt-Köthen. © Klaus Hofmann 2012 Production Notes Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd, BWV208 The only surviving material in connection with this cantata is the full score in the composer’s own hand in the collection of the National Library in Berlin; the parts used for the original performances are no longer extant. On the final page of the score is inscribed a separate instrumental movement (BWV 1040), thought to be related to the aria ‘Weil die wollen reichen Herden’ (No. 13). When that aria was adapted for use in the church cantata BWV 68 in 1725, the instrumental section was included as a postlude, and it seems likely therefore that it should be included here too. Until recently there were no other known examples of Bach using such an instrumental ritornello as the postlude to an aria, but a very similar case – Alles mit Gott, BWV 1127 – was discovered in Weimar in 2005. The next question we need to consider is that of who sang the choral movements (11 and 15). The instru mentation of both movements is indicated in Bach’s own manuscript of the full score, but there are no indications in the vocal parts. However, since the first and second vocal parts are both written in the soprano clef, one might imagine that they were sung by the sopranos who took the two solo roles of Diana and Pales. The problem is that the tessitura of the second part (c' to d'') is much lower than that of the solo move ment sung by Pales (e' to a flat''), making it unlikely that this part would have been taken by the same soloist who sang the role of Pales. Instead it falls within the typical range employed by Bach in alto parts, and on purely musical grounds it is thus natural to assume that it was sung by other singers. Taking the extra-musical context into consideration, there is nothing intrinsically strange about letting the people present – or indeed a larger assembly of gods – praise Duke Christian, and we have therefore decided to add members of the BCJ choir to these movements. As an opening of this disc, we have chosen to per form the Sinfonia BWV 1046a/1, from the earlier version of Brandenburg Concerto No. 1. This movement has exactly the same orchestration as the ‘Hunt’ Cantata and may well have been performed together with that work at the time. Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht, BWV134a The main materials for this cantata are the composer’s own, but incomplete manuscript of the full score in the library of the Paris Conservatoire, and the original parts that were used in the 1724 performance of the church cantata BWV 134, Ein Herz, das seinen Jesum lebend weiß, housed in the National Library in Berlin. The Berlin manuscripts (St 18) include a total of sixteen parts, seven of which had already been used in per formances of BWV 134a during the composer’s Cöthen period. Two of these are continuo parts, differing from each other in that one of them has rests inscribed in the latter half of the eighth movement, corresponding to the sections sung solely by alto and tenor. This would suggest that the part was intended for performance on the double bass, which consequently would also have been used in all the other movements, including recitatives. The only way to find out whether this is effective is, as always, actually to try it out in practice. © Masaaki Suzuki 2012