Luogo e data di registrazione		Saitama Arts Theater Concert Hall (Japan) - September/October 2014
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer | Engineer		Hans Kipfer (Take5 Music Productions) | Jens Braun (Take5 Music Productions) | Akimi Hayashi
	Edizione CD		BIS - BIS-2161 SACD - (1 CD) - durata 73' 17" - (p) & (c) 2015 - DDD
	Note		-

COMMENTARY

Lasst uns sorgen, lasst uns wachen, BWV 213 Let us take care, let us keep watch The cantatas Lasst uns sorgen, lasst uns wachen and Tönet, ihr Pauken, erschallet, Trompeten belong to a series of festive works that Bach performed in 1733–34 in honour of the Saxon Prince-Elector Friedrich August II and his family; these were played by the Collegium musicum in Leipzig that had been founded by Telemann and had been directed by Bach since 1729. The death of Augustus the Strong on 1st February 1733 marked the end of an era for Saxony, and expectations were high for his son, who succeeded him as Prince-Elector and shortly afterwards as King of Poland. Bach, too, hoped for improve ments. In the summer of 1733 he delivered his Missa, BWV 233 I (consisting of the Kyrie and Gloria of what was to become the Mass in B minor), to his new ruler, along with a request to be granted a court title. The festive performances in Leipzig that soon followed allowed him to keep his application fresh in the minds of the ruling family and to gain their goodwill. Finally he was successful: after a renewed application he was given the title of court composer. The cantata Lasst uns sorgen was written for the eleventh birthday of the Saxon Electoral Prince Friedrich Christian on 5th September 1733. The previous day, the following announcement was placed in the Leipziger Zeitungen: ‘Bach’s Collegium Musicum will tomorrow, 5th September, most humbly celebrate the illustrious birthday of His High ness the Electoral Prince of Saxony with solemn music from 4 until 6 in the afternoon in the Zimmermann Garden by the Grimm Gate.’ The performance was therefore a festive open-air occasion in the coffee garden of Café Zimmermann, which was a regular concert venue for the Collegium musicum. Those who attended dis covered what sort of ‘solemn’ [i.e. festive] music was to be played with the help of a printed programme, probably very similar to the reprint of the texts in a book of poetry that Bach’s ‘poet in residence’ Christian Friedrich Henrici (1700–64), known as Picander, was later to publish in Part IV of his Ernst-Schertzhafften und Satyrischen Gedichte (1737). Picander’s volume calls it: ‘Hercules at the Crossroads, for the birthday of His High ness the Electoral Prince of Saxony, 5th September 1733. DRAMA PER MUSICA.’ The term ‘dramma per musica’ indicates the work’s genre: it is a dramatic cantata. i.e. one that allocates specific roles to singers. The title and the name of the protagonist, Her cules, allude to the world of antiquity and its gods. The demigod Hercules (in Greek Heracles) was the illegitimate son of Jupiter (Zeus), father of the gods, and Alkmene, a vigorous and exceptionally handsome hero with the eternal radiance of youth – and theref ore a popular symbol and idol of baroque rulers. In Picander’s libretto he represents the Electoral Prince, and in Bach’s music he is sung by an alto (at the age of eleven, his voice had not yet broken). According to ancient mythology – Greek and many others besides – Mercury (Hermes), sung by a bass in Bach’s cantata, is the messenger of the gods, a mediator between the world of the gods and the human world. In addition there are two allegorical figures, Lust (soprano) and Virtue (tenor), and larger groups representing the Divine Council (in the opening chorus) and the Choir of Muses (in the final movement). The plot alludes to an episode from Hercules’ youth. Banished to a remote place after an act of violence, he considers what the future course of his life will be. There, at a crossroads, he encounters two women. One of them, outwardly alluring, is Lust. She tries to win Hercules’ friendship and promises him a comfortable life full of comfort and pleasure. The other is Virtue, who also tries to befriend him, suggesting that he should follow the path of virtue in accordance with the will of the gods, that he should not shy away from hardship, work and toil, and become a master of all that is great and good. Hercules rejects Lust and chooses Virtue. In Bach’s birthday cantata the source material from antiquity is adapted to the needs of the occasion. This starts in the opening chorus: the gods carefully watch the development of the young ‘son of the gods’ and decide to oversee his way of virtue, to future greatness. Then the young Hercules appears (second movement) and asks himself and nature (the ‘slender branches’) about the path that he will follow. Like two possible answers, Lust and Virtue appear, court him, tempt and warn him. They are interrupted by a monologue from Hercules (fifth movement) in which he once more asks for advice from nature – which, like an oracle but nonetheless as an echo of his own inner voice, tells him to turn down Lust and follow Virtue. At the end of this inner conflict comes the harsh rejection of Lust (ninth movement) and a profession of steadfast faith between Hercules and Virtue (tenth and eleventh movements). Mercury's recitative (twelfth movement) provides the turning point of this play with images and figures from antiquity, as well as the deciphering of the riddle – although all the listeners must surely have worked it out some time earlier. The gods’ messenger – who, as befits his stature, is granted the luxury of orchestral accompaniment to his recitative – speaks to the Council of the Gods and simultaneously to the citizens of Saxony: Look! Our Hercules is none other than the Electoral Prince Friedrich Christian, and he is on the right path, a very promising one! And look! The Muses too are overjoyed to see it! In the final chorus the Muses present their congratulations to the future ruler, supported by a solo from Mercury. And the fact that it is specifically the Muses, the goddesses of the arts, who are here presenting their tribute, will have been clearly understood by the ruling family as an expression of what was expected of them. As in Tönet, ihr Pauken, those who are familiar with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach will meet old acquaintances in the choruses and arias. A good year after composing them, Bach reused the introductory chorus and all five aria movements – with new texts – in his Christmas Oratorio, BWV248. The introductory chorus appears in Part IV of the oratorio, with a text starting ‘Fallt mit Danken, fallt mit Loben’ (‘Fall down with thanks, fall down with praise’). In addition the echo movement (fifth movement) returns there as a soprano aria with the text ‘Flößt, mein Heiland, flößt dein Name’ (‘Does my saviour, does your name infuse’), and the tenor aria ‘Auf meinen Flügeln sollst du schweben’ (‘You shall soar up on my wings’; seventh movement) becomes ‘Ich will nur dir zu Ehren leben’ (‘I want only to live to your glory’). Lust’s slumber aria ‘Schlafe, mein Liebster’ (‘Sleep, my dearest’; third movement), was included in Part II of the oratorio, with the same opening words and the exquisite accompaniment of an oboe quartet. The duet of Hercules and Virtue (eleventh movement) was used with minor modifications in Part III as the duet ‘Herr, dein Mitleid’ (‘Lord, your mercy’). The only one of these movements to be subjected to a major revision was Hercules’s aria ‘Ich will dich nicht hören’ (‘I don’t want to hear you’; ninth movement), which recurs as ‘Bereite dich, Zion’ (‘Prepare yourself, Zion’) in Part I of the oratorio. In this case Bach transformed an attitude of brusque rejection into a bridegroom’s feeling of loving expec tation – a remarkable feat which has earned him much praise from Bach scholars. For the last movement of this birthday composition Bach turned to a homage cantata – now lost – from his Köthen period, which he had already adapted into the cantata Erwünschtes Freudenlicht (BWV184) for the third day of Whitsun in 1724, expanding the original final duet into a four-part piece. Tönet, ihr Pauken, erschallet, Trompeten, BWV 214 Sound, ye drums, Ring out, ye trumpets! The very title of this work betrays something of the splendour of the orchestral forces used in this magnificent festive work, written to mark the 34th birthday of the Prince-Elector’s wife, Maria Josepha of Saxony, Queen of Poland, on 8th December 1733. The deci sion to celebrate the occasion with music may have been taken rather late: Bach’s score is dated the day before the birthday, i.e. 7th December, allowing no more than 24 hours for copying the parts and rehearsals! For the performance a booklet of texts was printed and, in accordance with the practice of the time, an especially lavishly produced copy of this booklet would have been delivered to the Dresden court. As the booklet shows, the per formance itself was given in Leipzig by the Collegium musicum directed by Bach himself, probably – as was usual – in the Zimmermann coffee house. It was a society occasion of the first order, accompanied not by coffee, cake, beer and tobacco smoke but with splen dour, pomp and ceremony, certainly attended by the cream of Leipzig society. Even if the Queen herself was absent, a representative of the court would surely have been in attendance. The identity of the librettist is not known. The cantata text – and Bach’s setting – belong to the ‘dramma per musica’ genre, in other words a piece with roles for characters whose words portray action. The action is sustained by four mythological and allegorical figures, represented by solo singers of the four traditional vocal types. Bellona (soprano), the goddess of war, speaks for the armed forces of Saxony. Pallas (alto), or Pallas Athene, is the goddess of the arts and sciences; Irene (tenor) is the goddess of peace; and finally Fama (bass) is the goddess of fame. The latter two roles, although representing female characters, are sung by a tenor and a bass, probably because Bach wished to use a ‘proper’ quartet of soloists and attached greater importance to musical demands than to dramaturgical logic. The plot itself is very modest. The first movement summons us to celebrate and to salute the Queen, after which the four characters all pay her a birthday tribute from their different perspectives. For all of them it is a joyous occasion, for the goddess of peace as well as for the goddess of war, for the goddess of the arts and sciences as well as for the goddess of fame. In the end Irene, Bellona, Pallas and Fama join forces to convey their good wishes. Irene, goddess of peace, calls out ‘Blühet, ihr Linden in Sachsen, wie Zedern!’ (‘Bloom, ye lindens in Saxony, like cedars!’) – in other words, blossom in long-lasting peace and prosperity, as enduring as the cedars for centuries and millennia. Bellona summons up a magnificent military parade; Pallas makes the Muses sing with full voice. And Fama wishes – for herself and the others as well as the Queen – many more ‘güldene Freuden’ (‘golden joys’) in ‘fröhlichen Stunden’ (‘happy hours’) and ‘freudigen Zeiten’ (‘joyful times’). Little needs to be said here about Bach’s music. The majority of it – including the most impor tant sections – is well-known from other contexts. Of the five main movements of this cantata – the two choruses (beginning and end) and three arias – four were supplied with new texts and transferred to Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in 1734. The opening movement of the cantata, ‘Tönet, ihr Pauken, erschallet, Trompeten’ (‘Sound, ye drums, Ring out, ye trumpets’), also begins the oratorio with the words ‘Jauchzet, frohlocket, auf, preiset die Tage’ (‘Rejoice, exult! Praise those days’). As a result, one of the best-loved moments in the birthday cantata is lost: its first words call upon various instrument in turn, and this is also the order in which Bach introduces them at the beginning and then again when the voices enter: first the timpani, then the trumpets and then the ‘klingenden Saiten’ (‘resonant strings’) of the string orchestra – as if they were following the singers’ exhortations. In her aria (third movement) Bellona, goddess of war, calls upon the ‘wohlgegriffnen Flöten’ (‘expertly held flutes’) – rather than the trumpets, thereby indicating that peace and security reign. Her aria does have a military tone, although this is not to the fore: from time to time, in both the solo part and the accompaniment, there are allusions to a military signal that will not have been lost upon Bach’s con temporaries – and this may be the reason why this is the only one of the arias that was not transferred to the Christmas Oratorio. Pallas’s aria, ‘Fromme Musen, meine Glieder’ (‘Devout Muses! My sisters!’, fifth movement), here for alto accompanied by oboe d’amore, appears as a tenor aria with concertante flute in the Christmas Oratorio, with the text ‘Frohe Hirten, eilt, ach eilet’ (‘Happy shepherds, hurry, oh hurry’). The seventh movement, the aria ‘Kron und Preis gekrönter Damen’ (‘Crown and prize of crowned ladies’) addressed directly to the Queen, was transformed into one addressed to the Saviour, ‘Großer Herr und starker König’ (‘Mighty Lord and great king’). The movement that concludes the birthday cantata – in which, as in an opera finale, the actors appear individually on stage and say their last words – was reused as the introductory chorus of Part III of the Christmas Oratorio, albeit without the character dramaturgy but instead as a hymn-like appeal to God: ‘Herrscher des Himmels, erhöre das Lallen, lass dir die matten Gesänge gefallen, wenn dich dein Zion mit Psalmen erhöht!’ (‘Lord of the heavens, hark to the babble, may our feeble song please you, when your Zion lifts you up with psalms!’). me. © Klaus Hofmann 2015