Program IV

MUSIC OF J. S. BACH

Saturday, September 3, 2011 • 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, September 4, 2011 • 4:00 p.m.

Chorale Prelude (from 18 Chorale Preludes)
   Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr’
Sonata in E minor, BWV 1030
Cantata Arias
   Die Armen will der Herr umarmen (from BWV 186)
   Ich nehme mein Leiden mit Freuden auf mich (from BWV 75)
   Hört, ihr Völker, Gottes Stimme (from BWV 76)
   Gott versorget alles Leben (from BWV 187)
Trio Sonata in Eb, BWV 525
Two Chorale Preludes (from Orgelbüchlein)
   Wenn Wir in höchsten Nöthen sein
   O Mensch, bewein’ dein Sünde gross
Cantata: Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut, BWV 1099

Kendra Colton, soprano
Peggy Pearson, oboe
Rose Mary Harbison & Laura Burns, violin
Jen Paulson, viola • Karl Lavine, ‘cello • Ross Gilliland, bass
John Harbison, keyboard

Again we close our season with a Bach program, again with the valued collaboration of two colleagues from Boston’s Emmanuel Music, soprano Kendra Colton and oboist Peggy Pearson. The featured work will be a great, expansive early cantata, Mein Herze Schwimmt in Blut (My Heart Swims in Blood), BWV 199. This piece, more recently discovered than any other major Bach composition (1924), is based on a graphic, truly over-the-top text by Georg Frederic Lehms.

Bach worked seldom with the texts of Lehms, Dresden’s court poet, who was a spiritual brother to today’s rock-ribbed fundamentalists. But at this early point the opportunities for emphatic gestures, extreme contrasts, and operatic excess suited Bach’s needs. Probably the first cantata composed during the very important early years in Weimar, BWV 199 exists in two versions: one for mezzo-soprano (apparently written for a falsettist), and a second–ours on this occasion–for soprano, probably, and unusually, for a woman singer. In the chorale movement of this version, Bach re-assigns what was originally one of his few viola solos to the violoncello piccolo, the five-string cello also used in his D major solo suite. Otherwise the two versions are similar. Bach’s high regard for this powerful early piece shows in its revival during his first year as Cantor in Leipzig: usually he re-worked early pieces, this one he leaves virtually untouched. Recently the cantata has attracted notice in a staging by Peter Sellars, premiered in 1991 with Dawn Upshaw, soprano, John Harbison conductor, and the St. Luke’s Chamber Orchestra, re-staged and toured internationally with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, mezzo-soprano, Craig Smith, conductor, and the Emmanuel Chamber Orchestra.

However well prepared we might be, what a shock to the nervous system it is to experience the opening of Bach’s Cantata BWV 199. In these dark chords, in this stiletto-etched vocal line we feel immediately the gravity of the composer’s intention, the purposeful direction of every harmony. Composed in Weimar in 1714 to a lurid but promising text by Erdmann Neumeister, the piece was found only in the early part of the twentieth century, in its original version for mezzo-soprano (designed, evidently and exceptionally, for a woman singer). Subsequently another, later version, transposed up for a soprano (heard on this CD) was discovered, this one substituting ‘cello for viola as obligato in the Chorale movement, alas robbing violists of one of their few Bach solo chances.

We have often wondered what an opera by Bach would be like. Fortunately, in his witty and sophisticated secular cantata Phoebus and Pan we get an idea of Bach’s possible comic opera approach. Cantata 199, in its stark monodrama form, may suggest how he might have sounded on stage, had his career veered in another direction. The present performance by Dawn Upshaw has its roots in numerous staged performances of the piece, directed by Peter Sellars, a production that took advantage of the clear dramatic line of the piece, from statement of the sexual misconduct crisis (my heart swims in blood) through virtually speechless torment and guilt (mute sighs, silent laments), to a ray of hope for forgiveness (still God might be merciful), to the expression of contriteness (deeply bowed and full of regret), through the acceptance of pardon, supported by an old Chorale (I, your troubled child), to the final, graphically medieval expression of joy (I lie down in the wounds!).

At the time this cantata was composed, such an outline was not yet the guiding plan for most of Bach’s cantata structures, as it later became. Here he shows why it suited him so well, at the same time why he didn’t become an opera composer. The climactic aria, the peak of the piece, is the conversion piece, the moment of inner transformation and growth. Over and over throughout his career Bach was able to make perspicuous and powerful these hidden moments of psychic revelation. This is not the terrain of opera; it is separated radically from points of physical action. It is, however, Bach’s ideal province. In this early example, “tief gebückt,” he makes this bowed down contemplative state into one of spiritual exaltation. He begins with a straightforward Handelian instrumental phrase, which sounds like it will pause after four measures. Instead, it lifts off at that moment, and soars on, constantly renewing itself for the whole twenty-four measures of the Prelude (and Postlude). When the soprano enters the instruments have created an expressive world so articulate and eloquent she must only learn to inhabit it.

By the middle section of this aria, even more tender and affecting than the main body, we understand how different this personage is from any operatic character. A few Bach cantatas ascribe arias to “characters.” In these instances the soprano is often called “The Soul.”

– John Harbison, Excerpt from liner note for ANGELS HIDE THEIR FACES: Dawn Upshaw Sings Bach & Purcell, Nonesuch 79605 (2001)