The Bach Cantatas

[Mandryka]

[
I find myself paying a lot of attention to the non-human instruments (played by humans) as well as the voices. There quite a lot going on in that regard. It's the interplay.

Yes I noticed this in Kuijken's BWV 20 - O Ewigkeit, o donnerwort. I'm not sure it's a good thing - this isn't music where all the musical lines count equally, because the words count most. But my biggest problem with the Kuijken cycle is that the soloists are not particularly poetic, they can just sound slightly rote and routine, as if they either can't or won't sing expressively. I think that's not good. That being said, I've not heard the one in your pic, and a friend of mine said he thinks that they get much better after CD 7 - which I haven't verified.

You should try the other OVPP series from Montreal Baroque, I won't comment about it till you do.

[Mandryka]

Extremely impressive performance of BWV 91, Gelobt seist du, Jesu Christ, from Leusink. Singers and choir have a lot to do, all his singers have voices which are appealing to me, all sing intensely. And none of them project operatically. The impressive thing is the emotional range of the interpretation - joy through pain.

None of the others I tried - Suzuki, Koopman, Leonhardt, Kuijken, Rilling - were interesting for me. This is often because of the singers - either they didn't seem to make much of the poetry, or their vocality - timbre and projection - turned me off.

I'll take Leusink in BWV 110, Unser Mund sei voll Lachens,  too - mainly because of the singers, who find a vocality which seems appropriate for music which is, after all, part of a popular German Lutheran liturgy and not a comic opera or an entertainment for The Sun King. His singers aren't world class pros like Pregardien, singers used to striding the stages of Milan and New York opera houses, and that's maybe why they suit me. Harnoncourt also pretty good in this respect - but really, the way they do the choral head and tail aren't my style at all. Schreier with Rozsch also excellent - I'm a bit of Schreier fan - but I don't like Auger's timbre.

[MickeyBoy]

I'm using this book as a guide,  I intend to work through it. But I can OD on the music! After a few I don't want to hear any baroque vocal stuff for a long time. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1538135566/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'll get it from the university library tomorrow. What about The Cantatas of J. S. Bach, Duerr-Jones. Oxford UP, 2005?

Let me make my pitch for Blu-Rays of these fabulous cantatas. For me at least the visual aspect adds greatly to the clarity of my hearing, and not least because of the multi-channel recording technique.

After looking at the Ringer book, Bach's Operas of the Soul: it is a very slim book with minimal apparatus, but likely a labor of love. Better annotations than on an LP sleeve with some interesting anecdotes, but unlike what one might expect from a listener's guide, the comments do not treat each movement separately and in turn. There are some oddities: Christ lag in Todesbonden (not banden) and Sie werden euch in den Ban (not Bann) tun. Are these spelling variants from original MSS? Not explained. No text, no translation, brief summaries of the gospel readings (from the Leipzig lectionary?) but no epistles and especially no musical examples. Perhaps the publisher put a page limit on the writer. But all in all, worthwhile reading after the first and before the second hearing.

[Mandryka]

What about The Cantatas of J. S. Bach, Duerr-Jones. Oxford UP, 2005?

It is clearly authoritative and comprehensive. I've had it for a week and every time I dip into it I learn something. It appears to be encyclopedic, but Duerr has a personality and he quite often seems to enthuse about the music.

The Kindle edition is almost useless, badly formatted. If you're in the UK you can buy a print on demand copy from ebay at a better price than amazon sales. But it is still expensive.

[milk]

Yes I noticed this in Kuijken's BWV 20 - O Ewigkeit, o donnerwort. I'm not sure it's a good thing - this isn't music where all the musical lines count equally, because the words count most. But my biggest problem with the Kuijken cycle is that the soloists are not particularly poetic, they can just sound slightly rote and routine, as if they either can't or won't sing expressively. I think that's not good. That being said, I've not heard the one in your pic, and a friend of mine said he thinks that they get much better after CD 7 - which I haven't verified.

You should try the other OVPP series from Montreal Baroque, I won't comment about it till you do.

I've listened to Montreal but haven't really concentrated. So I will do that and then say something. I like the aspect of Kuijken that you don't like but I can see why I'd be in the minority. I guess I'm not approaching it the way people should or would, especially people who really know vocal music and church context. I like the flatness of it, almost like it's Fra Angelico fresco or something. It's like the way Bresson approached movies: just make everything flat or one layer. It's too my taste but I can't imagine this is the way people envision Bach or vocal music.

[Mandryka]

Yes well maybe Kuijken's uneven, like all the other big survey's of cantatas. And I should say I have barely scratched the surface of his set.  Of the ones I've heard so far, volume 9 has impressed me most.

[Mandryka]

Alfred Dürr is definitive in terms of historic background and musicological analysis, but I found Richard Jones' translation of the cantata texts to be sub-par. It's a dry book, and is best regarded (I think) as a sort of encyclopædia entry for each cantata, rather than a cozy narrative of some kind. Currently listed on Amazon at over £100 for the paperback (and mine has already acquired a split spine and pages that are dropping out, so I think that's a bit outrageous, though it has been well-used in the 12 years' I've owned it!) and £150 for the hardback. That's quite a lot of cash to drop on a reference book that won't be un-put-downable bedtime reading!

For an older (late 1050s) but much, much cheaper (the going rate seems to be about £50 on Ebay) take in the same style, W. Gillies Whittaker's two volume 'The Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach' is a good complement, though the organisation of its content can be confusing and clearly the scholarship in Dürr's tome is much more up-to-date. I use both the Whittaker and Dürr routinely, however.

Does the Whittaker have translations?

[milk]

Yes well maybe Kuijken's uneven, like all the other big survey's of cantatas. And I should say I have barely scratched the surface of his set.  Of the ones I've heard so far, volume 9 has impressed me most.

Amazingly, I can only find one overlap so far, between the two sets. It's BWV 9, "Es sit das heil kommen her." This is a fine cantata, perhaps one of my favorites (I'm realizing). The sound of the Kuijken recording is so good, so very good. I feel the presence of every element, very crisply. Maybe, again, it's my preference but the instruments are very well mixed into the voices and are very present. I love Kuijken's violin in the aria. Kuijken is atmospheric. The Montreal is good. It's thicker sounding and there's some nice rubato; people might like that expressiveness. The singing is more emphatic but the aria busier sounding. The duet in the Montreal is very pleasing. The singers are Odéi Bilodeau and Elaine Lachica; I find them very beautiful and they really do blend sweetly. Perhaps Gerlinde Sämann and Petra Noskaiova, in Kuijken, aren't quite as lovely IMO but that's a very subjective thing. I'm just finding that and it leads me to want to listen more to Montreal if it all has these singers. I want to say I still prefer Kuijken; I love his sensibilities and his sense of timbre but I'm weakening a bit with regard to the singing. Both are very fine indeed.
Montreal is really winning me and it's great because the series has many cantatas not found in the Kuijken. I'm confused as to whether Montreal is a planned complete project. I went on to listen to BWV 4 Which I guess is an early cantata and another very fine and memorable work. Once again, I AM won over by the singing. I guess I've been nudged by Mandryka to listen to voices in vocal music. Duh! Well that's probably something I sorely needed to do.
I think Kuijken's strength is timbre. Milnes is perhaps a better conductor in a sense.

[Ras]

There is also a Bach Cantata translation by Richard Stokes from 2000.
I don't have it. Does anyone know it?
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Richard-Stokes/dp/0810839334/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1OPKCW7RRNNQX&keywords=bach+cantatas&qid=1647538301&s=books&sprefix=bach+can%2Cstripbooks%2C112&sr=1-2

[Mandryka]

Amazingly, I can only find one overlap so far, between the two sets. It's BWV 9, "Es sit das heil kommen her." This is a fine cantata, perhaps one of my favorites (I'm realizing). The sound of the Kuijken recording is so good, so very good. I feel the presence of every element, very crisply. Maybe, again, it's my preference but the instruments are very well mixed into the voices and are very present. I love Kuijken's violin in the aria. Kuijken is atmospheric. The Montreal is good. It's thicker sounding and there's some nice rubato; people might like that expressiveness. The singing is more emphatic but the aria busier sounding. The duet in the Montreal is very pleasing. The singers are Odéi Bilodeau and Elaine Lachica; I find them very beautiful and they really do blend sweetly. Perhaps Gerlinde Sämann and Petra Noskaiova, in Kuijken, aren't quite as lovely IMO but that's a very subjective thing. I'm just finding that and it leads me to want to listen more to Montreal if it all has these singers. I want to say I still prefer Kuijken; I love his sensibilities and his sense of timbre but I'm weakening a bit with regard to the singing. Both are very fine indeed.
Montreal is really winning me and it's great because the series has many cantatas not found in the Kuijken. I'm confused as to whether Montreal is a planned complete project. I went on to listen to BWV 4 Which I guess is an early cantata and another very fine and memorable work. Once again, I AM won over by the singing. I guess I've been nudged by Mandryka to listen to voices in vocal music. Duh! Well that's probably something I sorely needed to do.
I think Kuijken's strength is timbre. Milnes is perhaps a better conductor in a sense.

Montreal Baroque are more thrilling in opening the chorus than Kuijken. I still like the old Richter more than either of them, despite the bad sound - he's got Schreier and FiDi and the choir sing their hearts out.

[Mandryka]

BWV 50, Darzu ist erschinen der sonne gott is very dramatic, melodramatic, extrovert melodrama in every movement. Not my cup of tea really, even though I can see it's jolly good music  - I'm making the most of Schreier's contribution to Rotzch's recording. Just browsing other recordings, JEG seems particularly into it  - so if that's your poison, that's the one to try I suspect.

(The bass aria makes me think of that thing in Entführung where Osmin says that people should be garrotted and he'll dance when they are   . . . Not heard that for opera for years. But we really are in Entführung territory with this cantata I think! Opera. Comic opera.)

[Mandryka]

Listening to BWV 121, Christum wir sollen loben schon and enjoying the simple unaffected tenor here, William Towers. Gardiner had Rufus Müller in his first recording of this cantata, but I'm finding myself preferring the humility of Towers more. It's another cantata which is hard to pull off IMO, because the soloists need to make it sound meaningful - I'm not sure that even Schreier for Karl Richter does. Gardiner's interpretation is inoffensive, and his other singers are at least tolerable; Richter is coruscating, he directs this as if his life depended on it.

[Mandryka]

http://www.willem-mengelberg.com/fr/fr-archive-mengelberg-cd.html

Willem Mengelberg recorded BWV 57, Selig ist der Mann, with Jo Vincent and a bass who I can't remember hearing before called Max Kloos - he would make a good Christ in the Matthew Passion I think. I have a copy of the excellent transfer from Hubert Wendel. The sound is fine, though obviously there's some vinyl artefacts - surface noise, heartbeats etc. You know what to expect in the performance - slow and "deeply felt"  IMO it is a force of nature, totally disarming, and it highlights how important it is to have outstanding soloists in this cantata - which is basically a dialogue with soprano and bass about the soul. I challenge anyone not to wipe a tear in Jo Vincent's big slow song, and not to dance in Max Kloos's  big fast song. Mengelberg, Vincent and Kloos can make it into music.


So how does it compare with the other extreme of Dutch Bach interpretation, Kuijken here? Answer in the next post, hopefully.



This cantata is, by the way, the sort of music where you need to hear every one!

[Mandryka]

One thing to say is that Mengelberg's performance is so powerful it's not really possible to listen to others in a clear headed way for at least a day after.

The cantata has a fabulous and famous aria for soprano with an extraordinary ear worm, Ich wünschte mir den Tod I've listened to every one I can find on record. There is one outstanding one for my taste, apart from Jo Vincent, and that's Suzanne Flowers for Jeggy. The whole thing's very good in fact. That'll do for me.

[Mandryka]

One thing to say is that Mengelberg's performance is so powerful it's not really possible to listen to others in a clear headed way for at least a day after.

The cantata has a fabulous and famous aria for soprano with an extraordinary ear worm, Ich wünschte mir den Tod I've listened to every one I can find on record. There is one outstanding one for my taste, apart from Jo Vincent, and that's Suzanne Flowers for Jeggy. The whole thing's very good in fact. That'll do for me.

And an impressive BWV 133 on this CD too, Ich freue mich in dir. Extrovert, exuberant. Once again the whole thing stands or falls for me on my reaction to the soloists - and that's very personal, so nothing can be taken as a recommendation. Katherine Fuge  evidently is my sort of soprano, as was Susan Flowers in 57. That's something I have in common with Jeggy.

(Not at all impressed by the alto unfortunately. But I'm learning that in these cantata recordings, you have to make the most of it.)

The cantata has a gorgeous central section in the soprano aria, slow, mystical, for voice and violin.

[Papy Oli]

In case that may be of interest to anyone, there is a used copy of the partial cycle (20-CD) by Fritz Werner on Erato for sale on Ebay UK. Not one I have come across before in my cantatas searches on Ebay.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/134059594594

The price started at £29.

[milk]

Three recordings I didn't know previously. I wanted to find small scale HIP recordings of these (the Kozena recordings has BWV 170).

[milk]

Montreal Baroque are more thrilling in opening the chorus than Kuijken. I still like the old Richter more than either of them, despite the bad sound - he's got Schreier and FiDi and the choir sing their hearts out.

I'm starting to see what you mean by the emotion of the voices. I also appreciate the flexibility of Montreal. There's a different emotional register there. It's often very good. Is that series done? I hope there's more to come but maybe not.
I'm also starting to listen to countertenors. In the Suzuki, I can see why he sticks by Blaze (Lenhardt featured him too - maybe in a late recording). Blaze has a tonal power and consistency that altos sometimes can't generate. I still like the paired down approach. I think Colln and Ricercar need to get on my playlist.

[milk]

BWV 78 has a very jolly aria. I like this cantata. Here's another OVPP that I didn't know existed.
I had never heard "Nach dir, herr verlanget mich" before. What a surprising work of art. Bach is so inventive, it's like he never runs out of ideas.

[milk]

A new release.