• Boulder Bach Festival Website
  • Join Us on Facebook
  • ColoradoGives.org Profile
  • Boulder Bach Newsletter

Boulder Bach Beat

~ Boulder Bach Beat hopes to stimulate conversations about the ways Bach’s music succeeds in building bridges between populations separated by language, culture, geography and time.

Boulder Bach Beat

Tag Archives: Lübeck

Abendmusik in Lübeck

18 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by Edward McCue in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Abendmusik, Advent, Arnstadt, Buxtehude, Christmas, Franz Tunder, Hamburg, Italian, Johann Christian Schieferdecker, Lübeck, opera, organ, St. Boniface Church, St. Mary Church, Trinity Sunday, Vespers, violin

St. Mary Church, Lübeck

St. Mary Church, Lübeck

At the age of eighteen, Bach was offered the job of organist at St. Boniface Church in Arnstadt. In spite of a rather generous salary for so young a musician, he bristled at the poor quality of singers in his choir and the appointment only lasted a few years. In October 1705, Bach requested leave to travel to the northern city of Lübeck to hear the great organist and composer, Dieterich Buxtehude, and “take in all I can of his art.” Granted four weeks off, he set out for Lübeck to meet his idol, traversing the 260 miles in early winter and reportedly on foot! Instead of a month, Bach ended up staying three months before returning to Arnstadt a changed man; he had found his inspiration.

While Bach undoubtedly longed to meet the famous organist, Buxtehude’s Abendmusik concerts at St. Mary Church were likely what precipitated the teenaged Bach’s road trip. Under Buxtehude’s watch, the Abendmusik concerts – privately funded musical programs featuring a highly skilled group of municipal players performing stunning, new instrumental and vocal works by the town’s famous music master – had developed into significant annual attractions. In 1697, several years before Bach’s visit, a travel writer noted the organist and his concerts as one of Lübeck’s principal draws:

On the west side, between the two pillars under the towers, one can see the large and magnificent organ, which, like the small organ, is now presided over by the world-famous organist and composer Dietrich Buxtehude. Of particular note is the great Abend-Music, consisting of pleasant vocal and instrumental music, presented yearly on five Sundays between St. Martin’s and Christmas, following the Sunday Vespers sermon, from 4 to 5 o’clock, by the aforementioned organist as director, in an artistic and praiseworthy manner. This happens nowhere else.

Though not bound by liturgical concerns, the Abendmusiken occurred each year on the final two Sundays of Trinity and first three Sundays of Advent, so roughly once a week from throughout November and December, excluding the week of Christmas. The events had begun under the stewardship of Buxtehude’s predecessor, Franz Tunder, but developed considerably in the late seventeenth century and continued long after Buxtehude’s death. In 1752, one writer recounted the history of the concerts, especially their development over the years from humble beginnings:

In former times the citizenry, before going to the stock market, had the praiseworthy custom of assembling in St. Mary Church, and the organist [Tunder] sometimes played something on the organ for their pleasure, to pass the time and to make himself popular with the citizenry. This was well received, and several rich people, who were also lovers of music, gave him gifts. The organist was thus encouraged, first to add a few violins and then singers as well, until finally it had become a large performance, which was moved to the aforementioned Sundays of Trinity and Advent. The famous organist Diederich Buxtehude decorated the Abendmusiken magnificently already in his day. His successor, Mr. Schiefferdecker, did not fail to maintain the reputation of these concerts and even augment it. But our admirable Mr. Kuntze has brought them to the highest level. He has gotten the most famous singers [both male and female] from the Hamburg opera; he has even employed Italian women.

Like most musically inclined Germans in the early 1700s, Bach knew about the Abendmusk concerts and undoubtedly timed his visit to Lübeck accordingly. He also must have known that a four-week leave would not be adequate to fully take in the concerts, but he failed to mention this detail before leaving. Bach was not entirely happy with his post in Arnstadt, so missing more than a month of work bothered him less than it upset his employers. Interestingly, however, when Bach returned and was reprimanded, his most serious offense was not his AWOL status; it was for introducing strange notes and musical gestures into his services in January and February 1706! The experience of hearing and playing Buxtehude’s music in the Abendmusiken (some have suggested that he performed in some of the concerts) had inspired Bach and directly influenced his musical voice and ambition.

– American Bach Soloists

Bach Tracking

10 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by Edward McCue in Bach's Life, World View

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Arnstadt, Eisenach, geo-temporal tracking, Google, Karlsbad, Lübeck, Lüneburg, Leipzig, Mühlhausen, Microsoft, Ohrdruf, patent

Like Google, most weeks Microsoft gets a big bundle of patents – and its forty-two patent awards this [past] week puts it on top of the charts.

US patent 8,260,775 is one that’s worth digging into.

Microsoft describes this innovation as a “geo-temporal searching tool” that will make life vastly easier for people trying to track you down. That means employers, the government, advertisers and, unfortunately, stalkers and angry ex spouses.

Clearly, another one for the privacy folks to track. This shot from the patent has a description below the fold that uses the historic composer J. S. Bach as an example of tracking over time and geography. It shows a select region of Europe centering in Bach’s home region of what is now Germany – and a time window from the years 1685 to 1765.

It isn’t hard to imagine all kinds of marketing scenarios that could make use of such data on real live social network users. Potential political, marketing and data aggregation uses abound.

Microsoft’s patent on geo-temporal tracking, as you can see, could conceivably show a location portion of a search interface – finding people by time and location. In the Bach example, you get search events in a visible window onscreen.

Gina Smith – ReadWriteWeb

Getting Tuned In to Bach

04 Friday May 2012

Posted by Edward McCue in Bach's Life, Bach's Predecessors, Bach's Works, Festival Events

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

acoustics, Boulder Bach Festival, Buxtehude, cantata, Chorton, countertenor, Dresden, Frauenkirche, Kammerton, Lübeck, Leipzig, organ, passion, performance practice, pitch, Silbermann, St. Mary Church, string tone, tenor, trumpet, tuning, Weimar

When Bach’s predecessors began to combine secular instruments with organs and voices in the performances of cantatas and passions, it was difficult to find pitch agreement among church and traveling musicians because organ pitches in Germany were, literally, all over the map. In comparison to today’s standard pitch of a’ = 440 Hz (“Hertz” or cycles per second), organs played as high as a’ = 487 (Buxtehude’s instrument at St. Mary Church in Lübeck) and as low as a’ = 416 (Silbermann’s organ at the Frauenkirche in Dresden), a range of about three half steps. In general, most German organs sounded around a’ = 466 (called “Chorton”), a half step higher than today’s orchestras. Even more strikingly, this Chorton was a whole step higher than the typical pitch (“Kammerton”) of most of Bach’s woodwinds.

While accomplished organists, such as Bach, could easily transpose their part in compensation for large tuning disparities, woodwind instruments and their players were less flexible. Their fingering system limited them to playing in keys with no more than a few sharps or flats, so professional woodwind players often carried two instruments, one pitched at Kammerton and another a half step lower, in order to play in more distant keys.

String instruments were also quite sensitive to the variability of pitch heights. When asked to tune up to match the organ or tune down to match the woodwinds, the responsiveness and tone of individual string instruments could change dramatically and unpredictably. As a result, the most mobile of string players in Bach’s time probably owned more than one instrument in order to accommodate both high and low pitch centers.

Therefore, whenever Bach was leading the performance of a cantata, someone was probably either selecting an alternate instrument or transposing their part. For example, vocal parts could be notated at either the Kammerton or Chorton standard, and when Bach was in Weimar, it was simpler for him to notate the voices with the organ and ask the strings to either tune high or transpose their part. In contrast, it was more common in Leipzig for Bach to write voice and string parts at Kammerton and ask the trumpets and organ to play their Chorton parts a whole step lower.

Bach was surely aware of the fact that the transposition of two or three half steps could have a disastrous effect on his singers. During composition, Bach would have carefully considered the tone qualities of the different vocal registers in order to avoid audible breaks from chest to head voice. Similarly, he would have guarded against an upward transposition that would transform a high tenor part into one for countertenor. It seems highly likely, then, that Bach had a reference pitch in mind.

Since the late nineteenth century, international agreements have encouraged orchestras to play at a’ = 440 Hz, but this pitch standard is generally considered too high for the performance of the works of Bach. As a result, the Boulder Bach Festival is adopting the Baroque Kammerton of a’ = 415 as its standard pitch. Performing Bach’s works at a lower pitch level more similar to his own will reveal new sonorities and enhance our understanding of Bach’s musical intentions.

Interview with Rick Erickson: Bach’s Cantatas

10 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by Edward McCue in Bach's Life, Bach's Predecessors, Bach's Works, Festival Events, Interviews, World View

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

alto, Arnstadt, bass, Boulder Bach Festival, Brandenburg Concertos, Buxtehude, cantata, Cöthen, chorale, Es wartet alles auf dich, Franz Tunder, Herz und Mund and Tat und Leben, hymn, Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring, Johann Crüger, Johann Kuhnau, Lübeck, Leipzig, Martin Luther, Mass in B minor, Mühlhausen, Mer hahn en neue Oberkeet, organ, performance practice, Reformation, Rick Erickson, Saxony, scenery, sinfonia, soprano, tenor, The Holy Trinity Bach Players, Thuringia, Zimmermann’s Coffee House

Edward McCue (EM) Please tell us more about the cantatas as they have been performed less frequently here in Boulder than some of Bach’s other works.

Rick Erickson (RE) I really wanted to begin this season of my first year with cantatas, rather than what are sometimes called “Bach’s major works.” Cantatas are the heart of Bach and employ both brilliant instrumentation and writing for voices in both ensemble and in solo roles.

On the Third of March we’ll be featuring two cantatas that are, to be honest, particular favorites of mine. Herz und Mund and Tat und Leben (BWV 147) contains the famous “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” It’s a rip-roaring cantata, in two parts, that employs oboes, trumpet, strings and choir in a brilliant opening movement. For the voices I thought that I should select literature that had some real meat on it, so I knew that this would be a great place to start, along with Es wartet alles auf dich (BWV 187).

EM Many of us Bach fans know that both chorales and cantatas deal with sacred themes, but we’d like to know more, such as, what was the origin of the chorale tradition, and what were cantatas intended to do?

RE Bach, of course, lived almost his entire life in Thuringia and Saxony, now states in Germany, where the Lutheran influence was powerful. Martin Luther himself, at the time of the Reformation, had encouraged and had, in effect, created a great body of chorales that were intended to literally speak the Gospel with the voice of the people. This hymn form, the chorale, was also often a didactic teaching statement. Luther said, “Sing safe into your heart and that way also remember it,” so the chorale became a central means of Lutheran expression.

The chorale led to the production of a huge amount of literature, first of all for organ, as the organ was, and still is, employed in the Lutheran services. Chorale preludes have occupied many pages of the organ literature from very early on, through Bach and indeed until today.

By the time Bach came along, the chorale had morphed and had a very real presence in the cantatas. Franz Tunder and Johann Crüger were some of the first people to write cantatas incorporating chorales and developed this expression into a high art form. Bach grew up knowing the cantata form very well as his uncles wrote them, as did many other composers around him.

Bach may have been most influenced by visiting Buxtehude in Lübeck around the age of eighteen. He walked all the way, spent a few months, probably absorbing all he could, and came back to Arnstadt.

Bach’s cantata output even probably proceeds Arnstadt, but certainly around the time of 1707 or so, Bach had begun putting his pen to the cantata form. A brilliant example of this writing was during his brief period in Mühlhausen. He then wrote only sporadically through his time in Cöthen as the court itself was Reformed, but Bach did write a few cantatas for the Lutheran church there. But when he came to Leipzig, he entered a world in which the Kantor, which was Bach’s office title, was expected to produce a cantata every week, except during the seasons of Advent and Lent. In that capacity Bach succeeded Johann Kuhnau, who had already written a large number of cantatas, but Bach decided to compose his own series of cantatas for Leipzig rather than reuse his predecessor’s works.

About a third of these cantatas that Bach wrote for Leipzig are lost, unfortunately, but the ones that survive are great examples of the high art form which was employed as a normative event in the life of the church.

Just imagine what is must have been like for Bach to piece together a new cantata on a weekly basis. During twenty-five weeks of the year at Holy Trinity in New York, we prepare and perform cantatas in liturgy, and simply to do them is an enormous amount of work. I can’t imagine putting on top of that the writing of them.

And think about the workforce that Bach had to manage in order to perform the works. He had to prepare four choirs from the school, rehearse the town instrumentalists, stay on top of the copyists who were preparing the performance materials, and keep the whole enterprise organized according to the expectations of the municipality as well as the church. But the cantatas are, in my mind, at the heart of Bach’s writing just because they were The Job.

EM I still don’t have a clear sense of whether the chorale was a hymn for congregational singing or whether professional choirs always sang the chorales.

RE The chorale was, first of all, the principal hymn of the assembly, of the people; however, the way in which the chorale was almost always done, even from the very beginning, was in alternation so that the professionals would sing a stanza, then all the people would sing a stanza, and so forth, back and forth. This was because some hymns that had fourteen, twenty, even twenty-one stanzas, and it could get to be pretty exhausting if everyone sang all the way through. Alternation was the way in which it was often done, and I think that singing in alternation is what finally led to the cantata itself: a song shared between professionals and all the people.

EM I suppose, then, that the Leipzig congregations were eager to attend the cantata performances because there was something new in store for them every week.

RE I think it’s very fair to say that because the opera in Leipzig had closed down two years before Bach arrived, so, quite frankly, these Sunday cantatas, which were performed on other feast days as well, were very popular events and were probably the central entertainment in the community. They had a liturgical role, a meditative, spiritual role, absolutely, but, quite frankly, I’m certain that they were intended for the delight of the people as well.

EM How do these sacred cantatas compare to other Bach works that are known as secular cantatas?

RE Bach was kicking up his heels when his Collegium Musicum of University musicians and he performed some of the really ribald secular cantatas at Zimmermann’s Coffee House. The “Peasant Cantata,” Mer hahn en neue Oberkeet (BWV 212), is a great example as it was written as an homage cantata in a colloquial Saxon dialect of German, a particular delight and surprise. Other secular cantatas are also fairly bawdy in nature and play upon the foibles of the general population of the time.

The writing in the secular cantatas is distinctively different and almost, in some places, points to the rococo.  For example, in the Peasant Cantata, there are places which sound peasant-like, with droning bagpipes, which would be a very unusual gesture in a sacred cantata. And then there are a few cantatas that dance between the two forms. The wedding cantatas are almost divided in half between secular and sacred, which I find to be most intriguing.

The body of secular cantatas is much smaller than the body of sacred cantatas, amounting to no more than roughly ten to a dozen, and in Bach’s day they played a different role because they weren’t performed in a church. Today, I think that we might want to consider staging productions of the secular cantatas in a theater.

EM How would you recommend that our patrons prepare themselves for the upcoming Festival performances of sacred cantatas?

RE You know, the cantatas are such vivid expositions of all of Bach’s styles and musical languages. There is tremendous variety among choral movements, including many based on chorales. There are also instrumental sinfonia moments and really astonishing writing for soprano, alto, tenor and bass with obbligato instruments. I simply think that this wealth of expression, coupled with the thought that Bach developed one of these many-faceted jewels each week, will astound our listeners.

What I want to underscore is that, while the Brandenburg Concertos (BWV 1046-1051) and the Mass in B minor (BWV 232) were carefully prepared, elegantly written out compositions dedicated to distant patrons, the cantatas, as polished and complete as they were, were dedicated to the hearts and minds of the people of Leipzig. It is these very human expressions, contained within the cantatas, that impress me most about Bach. If we take the time to understand the cantatas, we end up knowing Bach in a much more intimate way.

EM One cantata movement that you mentioned earlier was the “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” I mean, it’s an international hit, even for us in the twenty-first century. Would you go so far as to say that Bach was attempting to write a series of hit pieces for every Sunday and that, when they were strung together, they were not only emotionally satisfying but, intellectually, they helped to amplify the Gospel theme of the day?

RE Look, like in Boulder, the Leipzig people were, for the most part, a very well-educated population. They absolutely would have known the chorales, understood the allusions in the chorales, and have taken home something new because of the intellectual experience.

Every cantata is an event for both the enjoyment of the ear and for the intellect. In a sense it’s happy work, but it’s hard work, to hear Bach and to follow Bach. But that makes it very rewarding work, and that’s how, by presenting his cantatas, the Boulder Bach Festival plays an important role in our community.

Archives

  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011

Categories

  • Audio Recordings
  • Bach Excursions
  • Bach's Life
  • Bach's Predecessors
  • Bach's Successors
  • Bach's Works
  • Books
  • Festival Events
  • Films
  • Interviews
  • Memorials
  • Music Education
  • Organology
  • Other Artists
  • Uncategorized
  • Video Recordings
  • World View

Bach Resources

  • A Bach Chronology
  • About Boulder Bach Beat
  • BWV Catalogue
  • The Liturgical Calendar at Leipzig

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy