Luogo e data di registrazione		Kobe Shoin Women's University Chapel (Japan) - February 2015 (BWV 198 & 53), September 2005 (BWV 1083)
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer | Engineer		Hans Kipfer (Take5 Music Productions) (BWV 198 & 53), Jens Braun (BWV 1083) | Thore Brinkmann (Take5 Music Productions) (BWV 198 & 53), Uli Schneider (BWV 1083)
	Edizione CD		BIS - BIS-2181 SACD - (1 CD) - durata 78' 55" - (p) 2014 & 2015 (c) 2015 - DDD
	Note		-

COMMENTARY

Lass, Fürstin, lass noch einen Strahl (Let, Princess, let one more beam), BWV 198 Bach’s so-called ‘Mourning Ode’ was composed for a public occasion that attracted attention not just in Leipzig but all over Saxony. On 5th September 1727 Christiane Eberhardine, wife of the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland Augustus the Strong, passed away. She had enjoyed the adoration of the overwhelmingly Protestant population of Saxony to an unusual degree because she had shown herself to be steadfast, remaining Evangelical even after her husband had converted to Catholicism in 1697 in order to make himself eligible for the Polish throne. In Leipzig people felt obliged to commemorate her passing with an imposing funeral celebration. Unexpectedly, however, the initiative for this did not come from the city authorities but from a student and aristocrat, Hans Carl von Kirchbach, who – despite all kinds of bureaucratic obstacle – arranged a memorial event in the Paulinerkirche (at that time the university church) on 17th October 1727, at which he himself gave the oration for the deceased First Lady, between the two parts of the music. Kirchbach had commissioned the prominent man of letters and university teacher Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700–66) to write the text, and Bach to compose the music. In fact the entire occasion was not a church event but rather a political ceremony in which the city council, uni versity, nobility and bourgeoisie all took part. Gottsched’s poems are secular, containing neither Bible quotations nor hymns, and to some extent ecumenical. In elevated, solemn language – not afraid of exaggeration – the text devotes itself first to the sorrow of the populace regarding the Electress’s death (movements 1–4). Then, with an intentionally diplomatic choice of words, it pays tribute to her as a role model in death, as she had been in life, as ‘nurturer of the faith’ (movements 5–7). The final part takes a look at the Electress’s posthumous reputation (movements 8–10). Like Gottsched’s poems, so too Bach’s music adopts the elevated style of eulogies and funeral orations. The voices are joined by an exquisite combination of instruments, characterized by the gently sonorous flutes, oboi d’amore, gambas and lutes. The three big choral movements (Nos 1, 7 and 10) are stylized as a concerto grosso, fugue and dance (gigue) respectively. In between we find an alternation of recitatives and solo arias, each with its own unique instrumentation. In the baroque manner, the text is portrayed vividly and fervently in the music. The words of mourning and lamentation in the first three movements are constantly heard in conjunction with sigh ing motifs; in the third movement the ‘falling silent’ of the ‘exquisite strings’ is expressed by means of pauses in the string parts; and in the eighth movement Bach illustrates ‘eternity’ with a note that is stretched out for more than two bars on the first syllable of the word. Such subtleties will not have gone unnoticed by most listeners. In particular, however, they must have been impressed by the alto recitative ‘The bells’ quaking sound’, in which Bach imitates the sound of bells by having the instrumental groups enter in turn, starting high up with the flutes and moving down to the lowest register, the continuo. One can well imagine that people in Leipzig talked about this display piece long after the event. Three and a half years later, on Good Friday 1731, Leipzig audiences could once again hear the outer choruses and the three solo arias, now with different texts, as parts of the (now lost) St Mark Passion, BWV 247. In addition, in the spring of 1729 Bach had already made ‘parody’ versions of the outer choruses in the funeral music (also now lost) for his former employer Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen, BWV 244a. Georg Melchior Hoffmann (?) Schlage doch, gewünschte Stunde (Strike, then, longed-for hour), BWV 53 Until the second half of the twentieth century this alto aria, which probably derives from a piece of funeral music, was believed to be a work by Bach. Then, however, it became apparent that it only held this position because of a mistake that happened in the 1760s in the Leipzig publishing firm of Breitkopf. The actual composer is probably Melchior Hoffmann (c.1679–1715), who from 1705 until 1715 was music director of the Neue Kirche in Leipzig and whom posterity can thank for at least one very successful vocal work, the solo cantata Meine Seele rühmt und preist (which was also temporarily numbered among Bach’s works, as BWV 189). The musical charm of this funeral aria is by no means diminished by the correc tion of the composer’s name. With sonorous baroque vividness, the piece acquires its special charm from the use – in reference to the text – of two bells (probably an organ register). Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden (Erase, Highest, my sins), BWV 1083 after Giovanni Battista Pergolesi Bach’s duet cantata Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden from the period around 1746–47 represents a special case within Bach’s cantata output in more than one respect – with regard to his so-called ‘parody’ technique and also stylistically. The long series of solo and duet arias can only to a certain extent be regarded as a cantata in the usual sense of the term. Nor is it an original composition by Bach: it is an arrangement of an original (and very important, in terms of musical history) work by the Neapolitan composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–36) – his Stabat mater. In this respect it testifies to Bach’s contact with the new stylistic world in which his youngest son, Johann Christian (1735–82), would enjoy success as a composer of operas. We do not know what caused Bach to turn to Pergolesi’s composition. It is likely to have been the result of an external impulse rather than his own initiative – perhaps quite simply a commission. This seems all the more probable because there is no discernible liturgical purpose for Bach’s arrangement. Obviously Pergolesi’s original version, setting a medieval sequence about Mary, mother of Jesus, standing mournfully at the cross of her son, could not be performed in a Protestant church at that time. The idea of providing the work with a new text must have seemed appealing. The chosen source was Psalm 51, a penitential prayer of King David, which in its emotional stance and its inner development is a good match for the text of the sequence and for Pergolesi’s musical setting. With great skill an unknown poet managed to paraphrase the psalm using the metrical scheme of the medieval sequence so that the text fits smoothly with Pergolesi’s music. Bach’s task was primarily to underpin the new text. This was far more than just a technical exercise, however, and Bach approached it entirely in the spirit of a creative artist. The musical declamation had to be adapted to fit the German words; emphasis had to be modified; but at times Bach also seems to have taken exception to stylistic idiosyncrasies. Thus he introduced variety to those repeats that he regarded as unduly mechanical, often making changes to the melodic line or writing a contrapuntal continuation of imitations that are only hinted at. Overall, in Bach’s hands Pergolesi’s work – a decade after its composition – undergoes not so much a modernization as rather a restoration in the sense of being integrated into the stylistic world of Bach and his generation. Let us consider: in 1746–47 Bach was a man who knew what was going on around him, stylistically – his sons, among others, informed him of that. He was certainly not wholly closed to new developments, as this very arrangement of Pergolesi’s Stabat mater demonstrates. But Bach, it would appear, had his principles, and in his Pergolesi arrangement they clearly come into conflict with the aesthetic ideas of a new era. © Klaus Hofmann 2015