Make do and mend- Easter Oratorio

It's April 1, 1725- Easter Sunday in Leipzig. Butchers, brewers and purveyors of fleshly temptation give a sigh of relief. At last we're through the austere trudge of Lent! And at St Thomas's Church, Bach meets Easter with music on the grandest scale. In the opening bars he marshals trilling trumpets, horns, kettle-drums and a host of other instruments to make the congregation sit up and listen.

But rather than plunging into an energetic chorus, the music lets us know that something rather different is on the menu from an ordinary cantata. Instead, that sumptuous introduction leads into a more intimate, instrumental “B” section, before returning in all its glory. All the instruments are heard in multiple combinations, bringing out unexpected sonorities; it's a little concerto for the whole orchestra, two hundred years before Bartók. Our attention is grabbed from every direction; musical interest springs at us from the top, bottom and middle of the texture- sometimes it's the jazzy cool bassoons, at other times the oboes and the trumpets get an unexpected little duet . It's always unpredictable, but never wayward. Even the dutiful continuo organ part gets a little moment in the sun (at least in Andrew Parrott's fine recording), when the other instruments take a step back to reveal its lovely little upward scale.

The first movement draws to its close- and surely it's time for the usual mixture of sublime song and slightly hard-to-digest didactic theology? Not at all. We've got a whole slow instrumental movement now. It's a lovely adagio; a simple long-breathed melody played on flute (or oboe) above a stately bass. In fact, the singers only open their mouths once we're well into the third movement and the initial themes return, exultant and brassy.

What is going on? Some people have suggested that this is a whole lost secular concerto that Bach has recycled into a liturgical work- a long-lost, neglected cousin of the Brandenburg Concertos. So is this the musical equivalent of the youngest son of a eighteenth-century family unwillingly being sent into the Church after his cleverer or more aggressive elder brothers managed to grab the family estate, the law and the army?

The question is even more pertinent because we know that this whole piece had already been performed with secular words a month or so previously for the forty-third birthday of one of the local princelings- Christian, Duke of Saxe-Weißenfels. It seems that Bach may have written the music for that gig first, then got his favourite librettist, Picander, to write a new set of words for Easter to more or less the same music. This practice- the technical term is a contrafactum- seems to have a bad reputation, smacking of cheating. That's despite the fact that one earlier great masterpiece, Tallis' Spem in Alium, (beloved of Classic FM ever since it was mentioned in Fifty Shades of Grey) only survived because of a later contrafactum arrangement.

So it might seem that the whole piece is actually a bit of splendidly pragmatic bodging-together of second and third-hand music, cramming words into a second hand cantata which itself had swallowed up a large chunk of a pre-owned concerto. It's not as if many of the good middle-class burghers of Leipzig would have heard the music at Duke Christian's birthday bash the month before. Google Maps helpfully states that to walk the 34.6 kilometres from the Thomaskirche in Leipzig to the Schloss Neu Augustusburg, Duke Christian's pad in Weißenfels, would take 7 hours and 8 minutes. Oddly enough, there isn't a “horse and carriage” option on Google Maps; but it's fair to say that on eighteenth-century roads, it still would have taken a fair while.

But I think there's more to it than getting away with it. Bach knew what he was doing in his choice of previous material- the B Minor Mass proves that, which is packed full of carefully selected earlier material, reworked and perfectly suited for the context. So in these first two movements, I'd argue that the Bach is priming and tantalising our emotions wordlessly, sensitising us to the themes of the whole work. It's like the dumb-show in Act 2 of Hamlet: as Ophelia says, “Belike this show imports the argument of the play.” First, we have a rush of exultation; then we have a calmer, cooler atmosphere before a return to excitement.

And this fits perfectly with the message of the words once they start. Firstly, we run: “Kommt, eilet und laufet, ihr flüchtigen Füße” - “come, hurry and run, you speedy feet!”. Almost immediately, we have to deal with a slight infelicity of the hastily re-worked words- we're being summoned to the cave “die Jesum bedeckt” - “which hides Jesus”- but he isn't there any more. It doesn't quite make sense, but the music is so hummable and irresistible that we're swept up in it.

The fourth movement is a genuine dramatic dialogue; each of the soloists, alto, soprano, tenor and bass, enter as as biblical characters: Mary Magdalen, Mary the mother of James, Peter and John respectively. (Interestingly, this is a shift from the voice parts in the Passions, where Peter is a bass and the voice of John the evangelist is a tenor). They squabble a little. The men are rather slow on the uptake and prefer to wallow in their grief, cutting across the women's major-key joy with a discordant “Ach!” rather than listening to the message that Jesus is no longer in the tomb. This sort of thing is relatively rare in cantatas- but we see it in the Passions, and the Christmas Oratorio. Perhaps this- along with the complete lack of chorales- is a reason why Bach renamed the 1725 cantata the Oster-Oratorium- Easter Oratorio- on its revival in 1735.

The slightly fraught journey to the tomb leads into an aria for Mary the mother of James, who sings “O Soul, your spices shall no longer be myrrh, but only crowning with a laurel wreath (Lorbeerkranze) will still your anxious longings”. The first part makes perfect sense; the women were going to anoint Jesus's body with myrrh, a bitter funerary ointment which “breathes a life of gathering gloom” if you remember your Christmas carols. Now they don't need it any more as the body is gone, arisen. But what's this about a laurel wreath? Again, it's a sign of slightly flawed writing. The original text for Duke Christian's birthday mentioned triumphant crownings with laurel wreath, and the reference has been carried over in exactly the same place. The classical Roman metaphor of the laurel-crowned victorious general sits a bit uneasily with the biblical narrative, to say the least. But again, the music works so well, with a quality of calm yet growing joy. With another lovely flute obbligato to resonate back with the second movement, it gives me that quality of bittersweetness that I felt was slightly lacking in last week's Palm Sunday cantata.

We return to the dialogue. Peter and John finally get the message with the help of Mary Magdalen spelling it out: “Er ist vom Tode auferweckt!” “He is risen from the dead!”. The larger range of instruments in the orchestra allows Bach to give us a whole range of sonorities, including the flowing lower woodwinds which accompany Peter's meditation on the shroud that remains left behind in the tomb. It's almost a self-lullaby; Peter quiets his fears with the thought of that veil, and with that sign of life, we can refresh ourselves when passing through the veil of death. Again, it's that calm eighteenth-century Lutheran embrace of death that sends a few shivers down twenty-first century spines.

And there is very little real drama left in the narrative. After a brief S/A recitative duet, the alto as Mary Magdalen sings a further “searching” aria asking where she might find Jesus. But the text misses the opportunity to show what I find the most touching and radiant moment of the Gospel story: when Mary Magdalen's begs a man she thinks is the gardener what he has done with the body- and He replies “Mary”. Instead, the structure of the oratorio text, with both women certain of Jesus's resurrection from the outset, drains any possibility of exploring Mary Magdalen's grief here. She's already certain that she'll find Jesus somewhere- and so this aria is joyful and lively, but utterly lacking pathos. It's a missed opportunity, but not Bach's fault. Similarly, the bouncy recitative which follows for the bass is simple and authentically exultant, but strangely matter-of-fact. “Wir sind erfreut daß unser Jesus wieder lebt”- we are overjoyed that Jesus lives again. And a brass fanfare ushers in a final chorus, when the bass leads the other singers in calling for “Preis und Dank”- praise and thanks. Lovely oboe flourishes cut across the singers' declamatory block chords , and a brilliant upward sprint from the bassoon and bass leads us into the very last fugue. “Der Löwe von Juda kommt siegend gezogen!”- the Lion of Judah approaches us in triumph!

And, just as we are expecting to see the figure of Jesus himself, the entire work comes to an abrupt halt. Of course, Bach had as much music as he had already written, and the abruptness is for sound practical reasons. But the absence of the central figure makes the drama strangely hollow. It's not great opera- in fact, it felt to me like the sort of courtly masques written for noble conspicuous consumption. The pleasant purling woodwinds, the brief moment of angst immediately resolved in a joyful chorus, the small cast who don't really do a great deal in terms of action but who sing the the most sublime music- it reminds me of Handel's Acis and Galatea, written for the pleasure of the Duke of Chandos a few years previously. There are no chorales to give a voice to the worshipping community, none of the complex interplay between times and perspectives, or even many moments of didactism (which some people might find a relief). Ultimately the spirit is a long way from the feel of the other cantatas. Perhaps that's why Bach renamed it an oratorio; and the music itself needs no such apologies. Bach recycled it again for another secular party, and performed the church version at least three more times until 1749. So all in all, we've got some decent value from the music which started out at the birthday party for a long forgotten German princeling. Happy birthday, Duke Christian; and happy Easter!

Christmas Oratorio, Day 6- The Feast of the Epiphany. Christmas is Over. Happy War

The Three Kings reach Bethlehem and give their gifts to Jesus in an idyllic scene of adoration. It's the ideal time for Bach to give us a calm, pastoral ending- the shepherds with their safely-grazing sheep, Mary dressed in an improbably clean and anachronistically bright blue shift, Joseph looking slightly dull and worthy at the back. That's what Epiphany- the feast of the Three Kings- is all about. Right? Well, yes- Bach gives us all that, for a moment or two. But what drives the end of the whole sequence is conflict. The story focusses on a secret escape from a terrified duplicitous dictator; the music is harmonically unstable and unsettling. And underlying it all is an ongoing war of the spirit with a snorting, raging Enemy that will only be won decades in the future through tortured self-sacrifice.

The opening chorus brings us back to the world of Christmas Day, at the very beginning of the Oratorio. Trumpets, kettle-drums and a lively flourish from the strings. But there's something wrong. Christmas Day's opening chorus started in the trumpets' favourite key, D major; it happily cycled through to A major and later did some interesting things around E major. It all works beautifully and creates no psychological jolts for the listener. Today's opening chorus starts as if it's playing the same game. Again, we start with a strong triple-time entry in D major with trumpets and drums, then a move towards A major to give us a touch more excitement. Even if you don't know a D major chord from a Dover sole, you feel that things are right.  Exciting, beautiful, yes, but in a familiar sort of way. But as soon as that rightness gets settled in the listener's minds, we're thrown.

At Bar 20, Bach makes what can only be described as a harmonic lurch into strange and remote territories, full of notes like C natural and D sharp which are completely alien to what came before. (Incidentally, for any of you geeky enough to want to check the score, a fairly decent public domain version is at http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/4/47/IMSLP26544-PMLP06314-Bach-BWV248roslerVS.pdf .) And remember that Bach's instruments were tuned to be very good at playing in ordinary keys like C major and A minor with not many sharps or flats; indeed, in these keys they were more in tune than ordinary twenty-first century instruments. But in distant keys with more sharps and flats, they sounded strange and un-nerving. You can hear the difference when comparing Karl Richter's 1965 recording on modern instruments and tuning with John Eliot Gardiner's; Richter's merely sounds quieter, muted, intriguing at this point. With Gardiner and his eighteenth-century style band, the harmonic shift feels like a brief encounter with a banana skin on a dancefloor. We stay upright, but we'll have to take care not to end up heels-over-head. The old, confident tonality does return, backed up with the trumpets- but again it has to fight against these strange, dissonant interjections, made with insistently repeated notes on strings and oboes. The Christmas world of unalloyed joy is not as simple as we thought.

And when the chorus come in, they sing of struggle against a raging enemy. Their first line is almost comical in its vivid vocabulary- schnauben means to snort, as a raging boar might when confronted with a hunter trying to turn him into sausages. “Lord, when our proud Enemy snorts with rage, grant that we in firm faith may look to your power and help!”. Not exactly calming Christmas card stuff; we've moved on from that. And opposition and conflict are written into the way the words underlay the music. feinde Schnauben, “the enemy snorts” doesn't just rhyme with Feste glauben- “firmly believe”- it's set to exactly the same melodic pattern. Firm belief directly takes on the steaming nostrils of the enemy in Bach's web of musical counterpoint- and wins out, despite those persistent wobbles into strange unnerving tonality.

So why is Bach talking about enemies and conflict? The answer comes in the next recitative, which has one of the few moments when a character appears in the oratorio and speaks his own lines solo, rather than simply being described by the Evangelist. And surprisingly, it's not a Wise Man, or Joseph- but bad King Herod. This is the sort of enemy Bach is talking about in the opening chorus- not a vague sense of moral evil, but human, personal, and very dangerous. But he's also faintly ridiculous. The tenor steps aside and gives an opportunity for the bass soloist to practice his best fake-innocent wheedling voice as he says he wants to know where to find the Christ child, “dass ich auch komme und es anbete”- “that I may also may come and worship him”. You can almost imagine the Wise Men silently thinking “Yeah, right, Herod”.

And this lighter touch continues in the next aria. When the soprano sings “Spricht der Höchste nur ein Wort, Seiner Feinde Stolz zu enden”- “when the Highest One speaks a single word to put an end to the Enemy's pride”- there's a lovely whimsical staccato rhythm on Stolz zu enden, well brought out by Nancy Argenta on John Eliot Gardiner's DG recording. It brings to mind a primary school teacher waving her finger at a particularly badly behaved child- “I'm speaking, so don't even think about interrupting!”. And there's a long instrumental “outro” to finish, which re-enacts that bouncy rhythm. It's just a reminder that yes, there's a war on- but there's no need to get too frightened when the enemy is as transparent as Herod, and the person really in charge can squish him with a single word.

We return to the story, with some more cool recitative from the tenor Evangelist. The wise men stealthily escape over the border, keeping an eye out for the agents of the state. Initially, the music is calm, austere and reminiscent of Alan Bennett's dictum that people reading Scripture should aim for the same level of excitement as the Saturday afternoon football results. But Bach does something interesting (when does he ever not?). After a brief chorale interjection, the tenor recit moves from being straight quotes from the Biblical narrative to something more impassioned. Firstly, there's an emotional address to the Kings, bidding them farewell (“So geht! Genug, mein Schatz geht nicht von hier”- “Go then, it's enough that my treasure remains here”). This develops into a rhapsody of ardent love for the Christ child. People complain about “Jesus is my boyfriend” lyrics in happy-clappy evangelical worship songs today; but Bach's unknown librettist beats them all at this point:

“He stays here by me, I will not let him leave me. His arm will embrace me out of love and with great tenderness. He will remain my bridegroom, I will dedicate my breast and heart to him. I know well that he loves me; my heart loves him ardently too.”

And the instrumentation mirrors this journey from cool scripture to burning passion. It stops being recitativo secco (literally “dry recitative”) accompanied only by the keyboard, and acquires the more fruity tones of two instruments whose name is literally Love: oboes d'amore, with a richer, sweeter Semillon tone than the conventional oboe's drier Pinot Grigio. Finally, the tenor's recitative blossoms into an aria. Is it going to be more meditative love-stuff? On the contrary- there is a war on, you know! After the declaration of love, it's time to concentrate on the enemy. The previously sensuous oboes d'amore set up a 2/4 march-time (particularly jagged and unsentimental in Nikolaus Harnoncourt's recording), while the tenor mocks the stolzen Feinde once again: “Now you proud enemies may try to scare me- what sort of fear can you arouse in me?”.

In fact, for all the language of passion and war, Bach is using the music to give a strictly orthodox Lutheran plan for dealing with any fiendish temptations. First, you read the word of scripture calmly, unadorned- that's the first, dry part of the recitative. Then you go into your own emotional response to the text- that's the richer, more impassioned accompanied section of the recitative. Finally, you follow this with practical external action, mocking the wiles of sin and the flesh- the aria, with all its lithe marching vigour.

We're almost at the end of the two-week long journey now. But Bach still has some surprises up his sleeve. Firstly, all the soloists- soprano, alto, tenor, bass, join together to sing a recitative together- that's never happened before in the whole piece. It's a beautiful last opportunity for them to take a bow together (figuratively speaking, of course)- but there's more important work to be done. The trumpet sounds, the drums thunder; all our memories of Christmas Day, so long ago, are rekindled again. Time for final unalloyed jubilation to bring our great Oratorio to a unified close? Yes- and no. Despite the jubilation of the brass, the chorus don't come in with unison joy as on Christmas Day. Nor do we have with florid fugal entries as they did at the start of today's segment. It's Bach's last shock for us. What they sing is the chorale melody which is at the heart of the St Matthew Passion, known to us as O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden. While the drums and trumpets blare, the shadow of the Cross falls.

There's some controversy on whether this tune unequivocally signified “crucifixion” in Bach's day; it started as a secular love tune, after all. And it's true that not all of the congregation in St Thomas's in Leipzig on Epiphany Sunday 1735 might have known that this tune was used as the backbone of the great Passion setting sung there a few years previously. But Bach certainly knew that melody's significance to his own grandest setting of the Passion of Christ. Its inclusion here must be Bach's deliberate choice to cast us forward from the waning days of Christmas to the black heart of Good Friday. Just like the king's final gift of myrrh, used for anointing the dead, it points us forward from the beginning of life to its end.

This war isn't won at Bethlehem, surrounded by gold and frankincense; for Bach, it's won on a lonely cross outside Jerusalem, thirty-odd years later. But the struggle has now begun. For the great composer, dramatist, theologian and human being of St Thomas's, Leipzig, the hope of eventual victory is sure. Christmas is over. Happy war.

Christmas Oratorio Day 5- the Sunday after New Year

“Modern” means “lush, rich, well-upholstered, grand”. It also means “soupy and lacking rhythmic drive or any scholarly input”. At least that's the impression you'd get from some reviewers of Bach recordings. I'd normally be on their side- I've never heard a performance of a Bach cantata from a modern symphony orchestra with the dance of Philippe Herreweghe's Collegium Vocale Ghent, the beauty of sound of Masaaki Suzuki's Bach Collegium Japan. But Ricardo Chailly is a man on a mission to remind the world that you can be lithe, exciting and most of all fast with Bach, even if you're using modern instruments with not a gut string in sight. Admittedly, his 2010 Christmas Oratorio recording is with a modern-instrument orchestra that ought to have Bach's choral tradition in its blood- the Leipzig Gewandhaus: founded in Bach's lifetime, providing musicians for St Thomas's since 1840, and keeping the flame of Bach's cantatas alive in throughout the Communist regime.

And flame is precisely the right metaphor for Chailly's performance of the opening chorus for the Sunday after New Year. It crackles along a shade faster even than John Eliot Gardiner's recording. The brightness of the chorus's light vowel sounds and generally high tessitura (including excitable near-squeaks from the sopranos on “sei dir Gott!”) is heightened by the modern pitch, a semitone higher than the baroque standard.

But the brightness quickly darkens; we are in a territory of danger and political intrigue, as hazardous as 1980s East Germany. The chorus's “Wo ist der neugeborne König der Jüden?”, with its repeated Wo?...

 Bach, Christmas Oratorio, No. 45)

...reminds me of nothing more than the crowd's mocking three-fold “Wir, Wir, Wir haben keinen König” turba (crowd) chorus in the St John Passion:

(Bach, St John Passion, No. 46 opening)

The key and time signature is the same too, and the soprano part which follows is more or less note-for-note, with the word Koenig at the end of a B minor triad. (I've highlighted it in green). Bach would have last performed the Passion less than three years previously in April 1732, and it seems unlikely that the near-quote is completely accidental. The textual similarities with the Passions don't end here, anyway- the later tenor recitative sings of Herod summoning the high priests and elders in exactly the same terms as in the St Matthew Passion. But these resonances go beyond the simple similarity of the words and the music. They're both examples of political power in the hands of weak and frightened men; Herod at one end of Jesus's life, Pontius Pilate and the Jewish priests at the other. And the blood of innocents is shed as a result of the rulers' fear and weakness in both cases.

But the crucial difference is that the alto soloist is musically integrated into the turba, standing apart and playing the part of a believer listening to the story. The alto responds “Sucht ihn in meiner Brust”- look for him in my heart. There's no way that this is literally dramatising a character present in the Gospel story. Instead a temporal division is made in the drama to create two narrative levels, held in tension. The kings, and Herod are the base level; but Bach's own listeners, eighteen hundred years later, are themselves given a place in the drama at a higher level. So the distinction between actor and audience, singers and congregation, is being blurred and chipped away; Bach is showing that his listeners are still as much part of the great continuing drama of salvation as the kings, the shepherds and the child in the manger were.

Christmas Oratorio Part 4- New Year's Day, the Naming of Jesus

Fallt mit Danken, fallt mit Loben! Bach's first command to the congregation in the New Year seems quite unnerving on the printed page- fall down with thanks and praise! Now! It has slight reminiscences of a sergeant shouting at his squaddies to get down and give him twenty press-ups. But Bach's congregation- at least the ones who were awake and theologically switched on- would know precisely the reason for this peremptory command. When should every knee bow? At the Name of Jesus. At least St Paul says so in his letter to the Phillipians, and who am I to argue?.

So today is the feast of the Name. The call to kneel is nothing to be frightened of- just the appropriate action on this day of all days. And the music of the opening chorus is a swinging triple-time minuet, gently soothing. Rather than excited trumpets cutting through the sound as on Christmas morning, Bach gives us darker-hued horns trilling gently within the orchestral texture. And the text is more muted too; God's response to the Feinde Wut und Toben – the Devil's rage and fury- isn't fighting or struggling but “Dämpft”- he calms it down.

After a brief restrained interjection from the tenor setting the scene for today- Jesus is named and circumcised on the eighth day after his birth- we hear what is effectively a litany on the name of Jesus from the bass. Six times he repeats “mein Jesus” with different attributes- my Jesus is a refuge, is my life, has given himself to me... the sequence continues. It's reminiscent of the Eastern Orthodox practice of repeating the name of Jesus in hypnotic prayer- ultimately the aim is to transcend the words and achieve a more mystical union.

And the bass's repetition of mein Jesus is only brought to an end by the soprano line entwining itself around his melody. To me, it seems like a depiction of the interplay between masculine and feminine attributes of the soul's love for Jesus. The soprano addresses Jesus in a gentle chorale melody as meine Seelen Bräutigam- “my soul's bridegroom”, while at the same moment the bass declaims more firmly and passionately “Komm! Ich will dich mit Lust umfassen”- “Come! I will embrace you with desire!”. Bach runs the text for the upper voice and the lower voice simultaneously, making them into a unity rather than a dialogue. The love of the soul for the creator is something that transcends any one gender; once it is reached, the mystical union is beyond any analogy of male or female desire.

And so, quite correctly, we break free of that seductive analogy in the next section. Rather than having a picture of two lovers, a treble sings with another echoing him; it's a charming song of confidence, with an affectingly naïve “Nein!” or “Ja!” from the echo soprano at the end of each stanza. Some people feel it's a less successful section: Simon Heighes in the Oxford Composer Companion to Bach says that the echoes are “inappropriate” and that Bach is sticking too closely to the secular cantata Herkules which he re-worked. But I think it works- that little piping echo doesn't have to be the voice of Christ himself, but a voice from the believer's own unadorned faith, with “not the tiniest seed of fierce terror” (“den allerkleinsten Samen jenes strengen Schreckes”).

So we move from boyish, naïve treble-piping back to the confident masculine bass voice of the soul, again accompanied with the lighter chorale; the soul resolves that “your name alone shall be in my heart”, and we proceed to a lithe, skeletal, vigorous tenor aria (is it fair to say that tenors are sometimes a touch quicker and more active than basses? Maybe I'm just biased). The text is full of words like kraft, macht, eifrig- force, might, eager- and the scoring seems like a little double violin concerto, while the tenor is made to work far harder now than in his relatively relaxed solos as the Evangelist. Meanwhile, the first and second violins scrap against each other for supremacy like rival cares and duties. Appropriately enough- the theme of the aria is that a Christian's life is just sheer hard work.  

And the conclusion of the cantata is another sixfold litany on the name of Jesus:

Jesus richte mein Beginnen,

Jesus bleibe stets bei mir,

Jesus zäume mir die Sinnen,

Jesus sei nur mein Begier,

Jesus sei mir in Gedanken,

Jesu, lasse mich nicht wanken!

Interspersed with these six lines are varied instrumental interjections. Bach apparently used to slip these little interludes in on the organ between the lines of congregational hymns, and was told off for distracting people with his virtuosity. But here, they give a wonderful richness to the chorale setting; Bach gives us a tiny snapshot of different emotions before each line, but the singers always return to the same word- Jesus. Models of faithful Lutheran behaviour. But look at the subtle difference between lines 1-5 and the last one. The first five lines all talk about Jesus; only the last line directly addresses him, and that's why Jesu is in the vocative- “O Jesus, let me not stray!” I think it seems particularly appropriate to the day when resolutions are made- and broken.

PS. Sharp-eyed readers may note that I'm not keeping my resolutions very well either, and am a few days behind on this blog! Apologies- the Christmas Oratorio is quite big, as you see. There are two segments of the Oratorio left to do before we get back to the weekly cantata cycle- one for the First Sunday after New Year and for Epiphany, January 6^th. This year, these both fall on the same day- so expect some double-helpings this week too.

Christmas Oratorio, part 3- the Third Day of Christmas

Midwinter spring is its own season

Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,

Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.

It's December 27 1734, and Bach's musicians are probably feeling as groggy and overfed as most people are on the day after Boxing Day. At least this segment only needs to be played once, at St Nicholas' Church- the previous two were given at St Thomas's too. And for the third day in a row, they give life to a masterpiece. Royal trumpets meet pastoral woodwind in the introduction as the shepherds approach their King- who happens to be poor, helpless and powerless. It's all about inverted expectations on multiple levels. So the chorus addresses the earth-bound Jesus as Herrscher des Himmels- Lord of heavens; they ask the baby to hear their babbling, “erhöre das Lallen”. When the babbling actually consists of a formally perfect choral fugue, clearly something is unusual here! But the key to it is the request to look upon the heart's joyful praise- der Herzen frohlockendes Preisen- the only thing where appearances can't be deceiving. And this theme is crucial for today's section of the Oratorio- the combination of external worship and internal meditation.

The shepherds act as the models of how to relate to God in the eternal world. Firstly, they move. After a quick interjection from the tenor Evangelist, Bach dramatises their decision to go on pilgrimage with a little turba chorus. It's the same sort sort of vigorous choral interjection that Bach gave to the disciples and the raging crowds in his Passion settings. It's functional, dramatic music that moves the plot on concisely, rather than allowing time for meditation. “Let's go to Bethlehem”, they say- and within less than a minute, they're on their way, with concise encouragement from the bass soloist and a chorale.

You are not here to verify,

Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity

Or carry report. You are here to kneel

Where prayer has been valid.

And once they reach Bethlehem, the textures slim down and the scale diminishes. We have a duet for soprano and bass, accompanied by those rustic-sounding oboes d'amore. It's as if only a couple of people could squeeze into the stable at a time. It may not be the most earth-shattering piece Bach wrote; but it sums up that simple sequence of action that we're called to at Christmas- first go to the manger; then kneel at a place where prayer is strong. And all the time we're still playing with the strange upside-down-ness of Christmas- addressing a little baby, yet talking about “deine Vatertreu”- your fatherly love.

But the really sublime moment (at least to my ears) comes next. The Evangelist speaks up again, describing not only the shepherds' spreading the word about the new baby. Yet the narrative shifts from the external to the internal: “Maria aber behielt alle diese Worte und bewegte sie in ihrem Herzen.”, “Mary kept all these words and stored them away in her heart”. Bach does something rather magical here; indeed, I think it's a sign of his genius that his recitatives are never dull. (As a demonstration of how difficult it is to write exciting and compelling recitative, I'd point out Ton Koopman's reconstruction of the St Mark Passion, where the recits are newly composed by Maestro Koopman himself in immaculate Baroque style. I confess to finding them eye-wateringly boring...) But here, Bach shifts into a new harmonic territory for the words bewegte sie, with a little chromatic slither in the bass which lets us feel we're entering new pastures- and then we're into what could be an operatic aria for Mary herself. I love the feeling of patient pondering in the solo violin introduction. It could be Mary walking up and down in a room, or possibly the passage of thoughts one after the other in her mind as she tells herself: “Schließe, mein Herze, dies selige Wunder
Fest in deinem Glauben ein!” - “My heart, store away this blessed wonder firmly in your faith”. This section of the oratorio could so easily be staged. It's tempting to imagine an impassioned Mary alone and looking out at an ecstatic audience after the departure of the shepherds.

But this isn't opera. It would have been sung with no costume, by a boy or young man in a musician's gallery, possibly not even visible to the congregation. But this is part of the power of the piece. At one level, it's a song that Mary sings after the birth of Jesus as she meditates on what has just happens- as it might have happened then and there, and nowhere else. But by transcending any staging and by being sung by a high-voiced male, not a female, the aria breaks free of the bounds of time, place and gender in the narrative. It's the song that Bach is offering all his congregation (and, by extension, us) to share in for all time.

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.

A brief recitative speeds up the pace as we stand up from the crib. The chorale that follows is a simple repetitive tune with remarkably slow, short three-syllable lines (“Ich will dir/ Leben hier,/ Dir will ich abfahren”). But under the child-like melody are complex harmonies. For just one example, I've outlined in red how the tenors and basses rise up a whole octave through the texture in the last three bars, singing words that mean “With you I will one day soar, full of joy, beyond time, to another life!”. And how appropriate that they reach their peak on the word “Life”.

And after this rise to life, we go back. The tenor recitative tells of a joyful return home for the shepherds; and after a brief, simpler chorale echoing that joy, that's exactly what Bach does. We return to the opening chorus, back to the combination of king's fanfares and shepherds' pipes. The great journey of the first three days of Christmas is over, and Bach's congregation return home too.

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

The next time they hear Bach's music it will be a new year.

It's not the Messiah: Christmas Oratorio- Part Two, the Second Day of Christmas

A pastoral symphony portrays shepherds watching their flocks; an angel appears, telling them not to be afraid; a jubilant heavenly chorus sings “Glory to God in the highest”. Anyone who’s been near a concert hall over Christmas might well be humming Handel at this point. But given that the name of this blog is A Year With Bach, it’s a fairly safe bet that we’re still in Leipzig and revelling in the Christmas Oratorio- day two, for December 26, 1734 (Day three will follow shortly. Is that a threat?). Bach’s depiction of the angel’s message to the shepherds is subtly different to Handel’s; possibly less purely serene and celestial, but ultimately more subtle and true to the paradoxical mixing of heaven and earth in the Christmas story.

We start with that familiar Messiah moment; a lilting triple-time string melody conveying the serenity of flocks grazing on winter hillsides. But Bach’s version has more harmonic tension than Handel’s pastoral symphony- clearly these shepherds are going somewhere. And the instrumentation is subtly different too; Bach specifies oboi da caccia, literally hunting oboes, with a broader, slightly coarser tone than the refined standard instruments. They have all the resonances of the pifa- the rustic reed instrument like a shawm that shepherds are stereotypically supposed to have used. And, just like in the Messiah, a sudden moment of cinematic transition takes us from serenity to shock as the angel appears. Interestingly, it’s not the angel who takes the lead in comforting the shepherds’ fear; rather, it’s the voice of the worshipping community in the chorale. They reach out across the ages and declare that the news is “unser Trost und Freude”- our trust and joy, for a community of faith that extends from first century shepherds in Palestine all the way to eighteenth-century German townspeople.

And this breaking down of temporal barriers carries on in the bass’s recitative that follows. Bach and his unknown librettist reach back a thousand years further into the past, and tie the first century shepherds’ experience to that of Abraham- a shepherd too, and one who heard an unexpected message that reached across boundaries of time and space. The tenor aria that follows us calls us all to be frohe Hirten- joyful shepherds; and The bass recitative that follows directly identifies the “gesamte Chor”, the full choir, with the shepherds and calls them to worship. But it’s not so much that the shepherds are being depicted by the choir. They aren’t- the next aria is a solo and as we’ve seen,  the characteristic shorthand for the shepherds is those bleating oboi da caccia. It makes more sense to turn the identification round- the choir, as members and representatives of the congregation, are being called to the role of shepherds again. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter that Bach’s congregation in urban Leipzig probably didn’t see a sheep from week to week any more than I do. The call- to calm your fear, refresh yourself, rejoice, worship- is the same for all the hearers in all places and times.

The alto lullaby that follows intriguingly calls on the Christ-child to share the good things about being human. The refreshment that a few lines earlier was being offered to the people listening is offered to the sleeping baby: “Labe die Brust, empfinde die Lust, wo wir unser Herz erfreuen”- “refresh your breast, experience the joy, there where we make our hearts joyful”.  It’s an unusual theological point; that the gift of humanity is being bestowed on Christ, and this is something for him to rejoice in too. “Lo, he abhors not the Virgin’s womb”, that slightly obscure line from the unavoidable carol O Come All Ye Faithful, has its point made clearer here; it’s good to be human. Christ becoming human is a source of joy for all, even the poor baby in the middle of it all who has to put up with it.

Finally, after the shepherds’ lullaby is completed, we’re woken up with a bang. At last we return to the familiar narrative and the heavenly host turns up. The three-fold message- glory in heaven, peace on earth, good will to men- is perfectly depicted in the three musical segments of the next chorus; exalted upper register fanfares, falling motifs and then a return to the heights with an even more marvellous fugal section depicting the working-out of the good-will. The bass soloist addresses the chorus, no longer shepherds, as Ihr Engel- you angels; and the final chorale alternates the rustic oboes on earth with the ecstatic heavenly host. In Handel’s Messiah at this point, the angels float away in a charming diminuendo; for Bach, this only happens once shepherds and angels have joined together in praise. Unity is achieved between heaven and earth; and the end is peace, as the shepherd’s pipes gently die away.

Christmas Liebestod- Christmas Oratorio, Day 1

Christmas Day- Christmas Oratorio, Part 1

Rejoice! Advent has passed. Suddenly we hear something different. A totally new tone of suppressed excitement and simple, unalloyed excitement- and the chorus impatiently cuts off the elegant line of the trumpet’s fanfare to shout with unharmonised roughness- Jauchzet! Be joyful! Even then, the lines can’t restrain themselves from flowing into one another- the last syllable of getan on Ruhmet was heute das Hoechste getan ("Praise what the Highest has done today") melts into the flowing fugue of Lasset das Zagen ("Set aside fear"). Something too exciting for the ordinary language of musical word-painting is happening; for a moment, there's a harmonic crunch on Klage ("lamentation"), but it's swept aside. Similarly, the middle section of  returns us to a cerebral, considered Bach we thought we knew from the Advent cantatas. But it's all punched away by a return to the unison command- Jauchzet!

And the differences continue. The next movement isn't just a tenor recitative like in the other cantatas we've looked at so far; rather, the tenor's an Evangelist; less impassioned, sticking to the Scriptural text, but with a noble austerity. It takes the entry of the richly accompanied alto recitative to bring emotion to us on a passionate operatic scale. Just as in any other opera of Bach's time, the recitative sets out the narrative logic and facts behind the emotion- "Now shall my beloved Bridegroom be born"; the aria that follows enables us to inhabit the emotion and drink it in. Time stops and we are able to feel the bosom-heaving desire for the Bridegroom Christ; I do no justice to the flirtatious sensuality of the music simply by quoting the words Eile den Braeutigam sehnlichtst zu lieben- "Hurry to love the Bridegroom ardently". You have to listen to it and feel the heartbeat of the lover quickening.

But this isn't opera. This isn't some accompaniment to an overheated boudoir scene. Perhaps you, like me, can imagine a buxom singer-actress winking and flirting with an audience on the cheeky gaps after the words "Den Schoensten, den Lieben"- "the most beautiful, the lovely". Easy, tigers. This music would probably have been sung by a boy with an unbroken voice from a gallery where he would have been all but invisible to the congregation (who were definitely not an audience). So why write such passionate music, and set it to a libretto that drips with sexuality?  It's all in the Bible, I'm afraid. All the imagery comes from the Song of Solomon. That journey of self-preparation, of preening yourself for the arrival of your dream lover, and of eventual uniting in ecstasy are part of the rich centuries-old metaphor of Christ as Bridegroom and the Church as Bride. Bach, in his genius, has gone even further and made the Church an operatic character as passionate as any heroine.

But that's not the end of it. For any good Lutheran, the voice of the Church is found in its congregation, and in particular through the chorale. And the chorale that follows is indeed a love song. It's a secular tune used for centuries before Bach for a harmless little love ditty, Herzlich mich thut verlangen. It means more or less “I mourn for you passionately”; and the words set to it here resonate with that, asking “How shall I receive thee and how shall I encounter thee, Desired One of all the world?”. But there’s another darker side to this love. By 1734, when Bach wrote the Christmas Oratorio, Bach had used this tune as the heart of the St Matthew Passion- the chorale O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden. It’s a Liebestod a century before Wagner; a mingling of present passionate longing and the certainty that the love will culminate in agonized death. And by combining those two concepts in a chorale, Bach is allowing every member of the congregation who heard it on Christmas Day in 1734 to share in a bitter-sweet mixture of emotion worthy of Wagner’s Isolde.

And after another simple, noble declamation of the scripture for today from the Evangelist- “And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room at the inn…” the solo recitative of the bass and the soprano chorale melody wrap around one another in a dance of indescribable beauty- so I won’t even try. (This is a problem I fear I may increasingly have- Bach’s music is just too good for words…) All I’ll point out is the the conclusion- the bass’s declaration of the form Christ’s love took (“So he will himself be born as man”) leads directly to the chorale’s Kyrieleis. The individual’s recognition of Jesus’s love leads to the communal, confident plea for mercy.

And the bass gives us a glorious depiction of the paradox of Christmas. His swaggering aria is in an almost martial duple time, with courtly flourishes from the strings and the brass. But the words deflate this depiction of secular power- O wie wenig achtest du der Erden Pracht- “O how little do you esteem earthly power!”. All this pomp and ceremony is for an ultimately powerless baby in poverty at the heart of a hostile regime, who only has a harten Krippen- a hard manger- to sleep on. And this irony is brought out by the fact that much of the music for this section is taken from an earlier, secular cantata named Toenet, ihr Pauken. It celebrated one of Bach’s princeling employers. But by reappropriating the music for Christmas and the birth of that baby, Bach himself is turning upside down the idea of secular power. We end the cantata with the last chorale, accompanied by the full glory of the orchestra- but muted (particularly well done in Harry Christophers’s recording with the Sixteen). I think quiet, sustained grandeur works well at this point, especially when  the chorale’s words are almost verging on baby-talk:“Ach mein herzliebes Jesulein, Mach dir ein rein sanft Bettelein”- Ah, my darling little Jesus, make yourself a clean safe little bed” doesn’t get the child-like feel of the repeated diminutives ending in –lein. (Perhaps “Jesusy-Weesusy” and “beddy-wed” might do it. Or perhaps not.)

We’ve just seen the first act in a monumental new work, superficially similar to the cantatas, but moving their idiom closer to that of opera. But it’s an opera where the congregation are themselves represented through the singing of the chorales, as sacramentally and effectually as Christ was present for them under forms of bread and wine. The congregation, with Joseph and Mary and the Christ child are crucial characters here. On Christmas Day, Bach tells them to rejoice; and they rejoice as figures in a divine work of art.