Bach Bagatelles

March 31

            By Linda de Vries

Events occurring on this date in history definitively demarcate the Baroque and Classical musical styles. In 1703 Johann Christoph Bach died, marking the end of the early Baroque period. In 1732 Franz Joseph Haydn was born, a man destined to become one of the two greatest Classical composers. Overlapping both lived Sebastian, the greatest of the Baroque composers.

Our Bach Bagatelle for today is drawn, however, from two additional events on this date: The release of the film The Meaning of Life on March 31, 1983, and the performance on March 31, 2014 in Jordan Hall in Boston of Sebastian’s Mass in B Minor: The Ridiculous and the Sublime—a fitting conclusion to our birth month series.

The Meaning of Life is a Monty Python film (perhaps the epitome of the ridiculous) with a score by Eric Idle and John du Prez. In it they use Sebastian’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. This is without doubt the most famous and popularized of his organ works, even used in the Walt Disney film Fantasia. Only it is not his work!

BWV 565, the Toccata and Fugue was first published in 1833 in a collection prepared by Felix Mendelssohn. Since the 1870s, though, musicologists have challenged its authenticity. This piece does not survive in his hand. The earliest source is a copy by Johannes Ringk, which exhibits dynamic markings unusual for German music prior to 1740.

Over the past 150 years there have been many attempts to attribute this piece, none of which is conclusive, other than that most agree it is not Sebastian’s work. He, as well as other of his contemporaries, often created fugues on the themes of other composers, so some have proposed that it might have been inspired by Johann Heinrich Buttstett, Johann Pachelbel, or André Raison.

More recently musicologists have suggested that the composer might have come from the circle of Ringk’s teacher, Johann Peter Kellner (1705-1772), who had close ties with the Bach family. Still others have suggested that it might have been a lost solo violin piece, not a composition for organ at all. Lastly, Christoph Wolff ignores all this and says the problems can be explained if it is an early work that reflects the deficiencies of Sebastian’s Arnstadt organ!

If the never-ending examination of this much-recorded piece does not satisfy the definition of “ridiculous,” the Monty Python film certainly exemplifies the term. So, let us turn to the sublime, a second work that is clearly Sebastian’s—a work that he developed over most of his life, and a work that defines the sublime for many.

In aesthetics the sublime refers to a quality of greatness beyond all possibility of measurement or imitation.

The term is first used by Longinus in the first century CE, but as philosophers debated it throughout the succeeding centuries, the term grew to encompass a quality of greater and higher importance than beauty.

Without explicating that full debate, some of the philosophers’ statements prepare us to consider Sebastian’s capstone work. Edmund Burke (1756) stated that the feeling of the sublime is a more complex emotion than our reaction to beauty, containing elements of both pleasure and pain.

Schopenhauer categorized states of the sublime, saying the “fullest feeling” of the sublime was the observer’s knowledge of the immensity of the Universe’s extent and duration and the feeling of pleasure arising from nothingness and oneness with Nature.

Hegel emphasized the viewer’s response to the sublime as an overwhelming aesthetic sense of awe or astonishment.

Victor Hugo defined the experience of the sublime as involving a self-forgetfulness where personal fear is replaced by a sense of well-being and security when confronted with an object exhibiting superior might, and is similar to the experience of the tragic. The “tragic consciousness” is the capacity to gain an exalted state of consciousness from the realization of the unavoidable suffering destined for all men and that there are oppositions in life that can never be resolved, most notably that of the “forgiving generosity of deity” subsumed to "inexorable fate.”

Which brings us to the Mass in B Minor, a musical setting of the complete Latin Mass that Sebastian completed in the year before he died. It gave new form to vocal music he had composed throughout his career. It is quite unusual for a Lutheran to have composed a Latin Mass, and the reasons remain an issue debated by scholars.

The most recent scholarship provides this chronology: in 1724 he composed the Sanctus, later revised, for use in the Christmas service; in 1733 he composed the Kyrie and Gloria following the death of Elector Augustus II and presented them to his successor, Augustus III of Poland; in approximately 1743-46 he used two movements from the Gloria and possibly the Sanctus in a Christmas Day cantata, BWV 191; in the last two or three years of his life he composed the Symbolum Nicenum and the remainder of the work.

Sebastian did not title the work, but filed it in four separate folders. In 1790 it was found in the estate of his deceased son, C.P.E. Bach, titled “the Great Catholic Mass.” It appears under that title as well in the estate of his last heir in 1805. The first publication of the Kyrie and Gloria occurred in 1833, and the first full publication in 1845, titled “The High Mass in B Minor.”

The complete Mass was never performed in Sebastian’s lifetime. he conducted the first version of the Sanctus in 1724 and again in the Christmas service in the 1740s; he may or may not have actually performed it in 1733; C.P.E. Bach performed the Symbolum Nicenum under the title “Credo or Nicene Creed” in 1786 in Hamburg; Carl Friedrich Zelter led read-throughs of the “Great Mass” in 1811 and 1813 at the Berlin Singakademie; the Credo was performed in Frankfurt in March 1828; Karl Riedel conducted the first complete performance in Leipzig in 1859. It was first recorded in 1929.

The Mass is praised as one of the greatest compositions in history:

“I don’t think a greater genius has walked the earth. Of the three great composers Mozart tells us what it’s like to be human, Beethoven tells us what it’s like to be Beethoven and Bach tells us what it’s like to be the universe.” (Douglas Adams)

“Why waste money on psychotherapy when you can listen to the B Minor Mass?”

(Michael Torke)

“This monumental work is . . . the most astounding spiritual encounter between the words of Catholic glorification and the Lutheran cult of the cross.” (Alberto Basso)

“The announcement of the greatest music work of all times and all people.” (Hans Georg Nägeli)

And on his entire body of work:

“Not Brook but Ocean should be his name” (Ludwig van Beethoven)

“Study Bach; there you will find everything.” (Johannes Brahms)

“In Bach the vital cells of music are united as the world is in God.” (Gustav Mahler)

“All modern music owes everything to Bach.” (Niccolai Rimsky-Korsakov)

Bach Bagatelles

March 30

            By Linda de Vries

On this date in 2000, Oxford University Press published Christoph Wolff’s Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician. This biographical study was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2001.

This publication provides our Bach Bagatelle for today: Final Composition.

In his book, Wolff talks extensively about a discovery he made in 1999 in a Bach family archive in the State Museum in Kiev, Ukraine. It is a previously unknown arrangement written by Sebastian for his own funeral. It is the last piece of music in his own hand, believed to have been written some time in 1749. How did it get to Kiev?

The Berlin Singakademie inherited C.P.E. Bach’s manuscripts after his death and placed them in safekeeping in Ullersdorf Castle in Silesia, now Poland, during WW II, but the collection ended up in the hands of the Soviets after the war. After the 1999 discovery, Ukraine returned the manuscripts to Germany.

Professor Wolff and the team of researchers studying them expected to find only works by Bach’s two eldest sons, C.P.E. and Wilhelm Friedemann, but they identified this piece by the handwriting. Wolff writes: “The manuscript is the work of an old man who had trouble forming his letters. The writing is uneven, stiff, and disproportionately large.”

The work is not original, however, but based on a 1672 motet by Johann Christoph Bach, titled Lieber Herr Gott, Wecke Uns Auf (Dear Lord God, Awaken Us). There is a recording of the piece credited to Christoph: Motets of the Bach Family, Columns Classics #B55015, sung by the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, Timothy Brown, Conductor. Other recordings are also extant.

Sebastian had two relatives named Johann Christoph—his elder brother with whom he went to live after his parents died, and his first cousin once removed. Sebastian also had a son similarly named—Johann Christoph Friedrich. It is, however, his cousin who is the composer of this motet.

Christoph (1642-1703) was born in Arnstadt, but became organist at St. George’s and a member of the court orchestra in Eisenach, the town in which Sebastian was born. Christoph was also the uncle of Maria Barbara, Sebastian’s first wife.

During his lifetime Christoph had an excellent reputation as a composer, equaled only by that of Sebastian himself. His influence on his younger cousin was, therefore, profound, and he was the obvious choice to take the orphaned Sebastian into his home as apprentice. Despite his excellence as a musician, however, Christoph fell deeply into debt, and scholars speculate that for this reason he did not become Sebastian’s guardian.

This recently discovered motet is only one of the works that have been identified as written by Christoph. It is reputed to have been sung at Sebastian’s funeral at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig on July 31, 1750. Professor Wolff notes that prior to this we knew little about his funeral, only that he was put in an oak casket and given a free hearse. This music deserves appropriate consideration as we draw near the end of this series on his birth month.

Bach Bagatelle

March 29

            By Linda de Vries

On this date in 1750 Johann Christoph Altnikol performed BWV 1088 at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. Some cite this date as Good Friday, and a Passion is the appropriate music for Good Friday, but in fact, March 29 in 1750 was Easter Sunday.

This event provides our Bach Bagatelle for today: Spurious Works of Bach.

BWV 1088, although attributed to Sebastian, was not actually written by him. This work offers us a beginning point for a brief discussion of other composers of the period whose work has often been attributed to Sebastian Bach.

As the Bach Archive in Leipzig continues burrowing through churches, libraries, and homes in the former East Germany, it is likely that more of these spurious works will be revealed.

BWV 1088, called the Passions-Pasticcio, or Arioso aus einem Passions-Pasticcio (Arioso from a Passion pastiche), included in the catalogue of Sebastian’s work, was actually written by several composers, the dominant hand being Carl Heinrich Graun. Other contributions were made by Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Christoph Altnikol, and Johann Kuhnau. Sebastian’s contribution was the opening chorale from his BWV 127.

It began as a Passion cantata Ein lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld (A lambkin goes and bears our guilt) by Graun in Brunswick in 1730. After 1743 Sebastian arranged and performed it in Leipzig.

Carl Heinrich Graun (1704-1759), one of three brothers who were all musicians, gained his fame in the mid-18^th century as the primary composer of Italian opera in Germany. He began his career in 1725 singing tenor in Brunswick, but in 1735 Prince Frederick engaged him in Berlin as his music teacher. When Frederick became king in 1740, he appointed Graun director of the Berlin Royal Opera, and sent him to Italy to hire singers. The new opera house opened on December 7, 1742 with Graun’s Cesare e Cleopatra.

King Frederick I insisted on inserting his own musical and poetic offerings into Graun’s operas, but Graun managed to create moments of brilliance despite this royal interference. Grant was particularly noted for key-change developments in the da capo aria (an ABA structure). His recitatives reflect the Empfindsamer Stil (Sensitive Style) also adopted by C.P.E. Bach, Sebastian’s second son.

Johann Kuhnah (1660-1722) was Sebastian’s predecessor as Cantor of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig (1701-1722). Born in Saxony, he was a lawyer, a poet, and a non-fiction author. He claimed musical fame as the inventor of the keyboard sonata, with his Sonata in B Flat being the first. He is also now thought to be the true composer of BWV 142.

For the other two composers involved in BWV 1088, see March 14 (Georg Philipp Telemann) and March 19 (Johann Christoph Altnikol). Telemann is also believed to be the composer of BWV 141, 160, 218, 219, 824, and 840.

An additional 23 composers are now credited with having written works previously attributed to Sebastian, most of them with the first name of Johann, and most of them with only one or two pieces to their names, with the exception of Sebastian’s sons Wilhelm Friedemann (11) and Carl Philipp Emanuel (4).

These newly-attributed works include: BWV 15, 53, 95, 189, 222, 224, 241, 242, 246, 508, 553-560, 591,597, 692, 693, 740,745, 746, 748, 751, 759, 760, 761, 771, 835,836, 837, 838, 844, 844a, 924, 924a, 925, 931, 932, 945, 955a, 962, 964, 970, 1020, 1024, 1036, and 1037. An additional 100 works are considered doubtful, but no alternative composers have been assigned.

The two Krebs are of note. Father Johann Tobias Krebs (1690-1762), who studied with Johann Gottfried Walther and Sebastian, is believed to be the composer of the Eight Short Preludes and Fugues previously attributed to Sebastian. Krebs’ son, Johann Ludwig, who studied with Sebastian, was considered to be his equal as an improviser on the organ.

Alas, the younger Krebs (1713-1780) had a difficult time finding work, as the Baroque style (considered to have ended in 1755, five years after Sebastian’s death) was shifting to stil galant. 

Guest Artists

WHITTIER COLLEGE BACH FESTIVAL CLOSES WITH A FIRST:

A SOLO HARPSICHORD RECITAL

The 77^th Whittier College Bach Festival will conclude on Sunday evening, April 6, at 8:00 with a solo harpsichord recital by alumnus Raymond Erickson, '63, a protégé of Margaretha Lohmann, the founder of the Whittier College Music Department and its Bach Festival. The Festival one of the oldest among nearly forty in the United States.

Although Erickson performed in the Bach Festivals of 1960-63 during his undergraduate years at the College on the piano, on this occasion he is giving the first solo harpsichord recital ever presented at the College, with the theme of “Bach and his Contemporaries.” In addition to works by Bach, François Couperin (“The Great”), Jean-Philippe Rameau, and Domenico Scarlatti, Erickson will also incorporate the lost 18^th century tradition of improvisation into the program, a regular feature for many years of his concerts on both piano and harpsichord.

Although born in Minneapolis of Chicagoan parents, Erickson's family moved to Whittier when he was ten, and he attended St. Mary's School and Cantwell High School before coming Whittier on a major national scholarship. While an undergraduate he gave several solo recitals (including the first concert in the Whittier College Chapel), performed the Schumann Piano Concerto with the Whittier College-Community Orchestra (a critic characterizing him as “a performer of power and musical perception”), and participated in the Bach Festivals. Graduating with High Honors, elected to Omicron Delta Kappa, and named “Man of the Year” by the Associated Men's Association of the College, he then went to Yale to pursue the Ph.D. in musicology.

While at Yale, Erickson was accepted by the famous harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick as one of a handful of private students; further private studies with pianist Nadia Reisenberg and harpsichordist Albert Fuller, both Juilliard faculty, followed upon his move to New York, where in 1971 he joined the faculty of Queens College of the City University of New York. There he subsequently became the founding Director of the Aaron Copland School of Music there as well as the College's Dean of Arts and Humanities before retiring in 2008. In 1975 he was elected to the faculty of the new Doctoral Program in Music at the City University's new Graduate Center, and ever since he has taught part-time there; he also has taught at Rutgers University, The Juilliard School, and directs a summer workshop at Queens College, “Rethinking Bach,” that has been invited to Japan in 2014.

Erickson has led a two-pronged career as scholar and performer. Author or editor of four books—one of which, The Worlds of Johann Sebastian Bach (2009), is dedicated to the memory of Margaretha Lohmann—he is an internationally recognized Bach scholar, but also a popular pre-concert lecturer for Lincoln Center and other New York musical organizations. His research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

As a performer, he has appeared in thirty of the continental United States, Italy, Germany, and Austria, and in 2014 will make his debut in China and Japan. He was soloist in the New York first period-instrument performance of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 (New York Times: “brilliantly played”) and was a participant in the first American recording of the complete Brandenburg Concertos on period instruments. The German press has hailed his improvised piano preluding as “genius in the manner of Clara Schumann,” the great nineteenth-century pianist famous for her improvisations.

Erickson's honors include the Endowed Chair in Music at the University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa), Honorary Membership in Phi Beta Kappa, the William H. Scheide Research Award of the American Bach Society, and decoration by the German government with the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit.

The composers represented on the April 6^th program were all contemporary with J.S. Bach, although each has a uniquely distinctive style. Bach respected and communicated with Couperin, harpsichordist to Louis XIV and arguably the greatest French composer for harpsichord, but certain virtuoso techniques Bach occasionally employed may owe more to either Scarlatti or Rameau, both of whom were given to flamboyance and keyboard pyrotechnics in their music.

Destination . . . Chorale Bel Canto

Destination  . . . Chorale Bel Canto

            By Linda de Vries

Love classical choral music? Think Chorale Bel Canto.

Seldom or never listen to classical choral music? Think again.

On April 5 think the City of Whittier, where Chorale Bel Canto is singing with the 77^th Annual Whittier Bach Festival (scroll to the right of your screen for a list of all Festival events.)

Think Whittier is too far to drive for just a concert? Think again.

“Destination . . . Chorale Bel Canto” posts several times in advance of each of our concerts, offering ideas for a different day trip to the city in which we’re singing, with a Chorale Bel Canto concert at the center of your experience. These trips appeal to a wide variety of interests and share fascinating, sometimes intricate, connections between the city and the music.

Today, think Asian Serenity.

The population of Whittier is only about 4% Asian, but as the concentric circles around Whittier widen to encompass Rowland Heights and Monterey Park, the Asian population increases to over 50%, as does the number of Asian services—spas, markets, temples, gardens, restaurants, and more. Enjoy a bit of the Far East in and around Whittier before the concert!

Morning. Begin your day in nearby Hacienda Heights at the Hsi Lai Temple, located at 3456 Glenmark Drive, 626-961-6697, info@hsilai.org. Sited atop a hill just off Hacienda Boulevard on 15 acres of land with 102,000 square feet of interior space, this Buddhist monastery is faithful to the Ming (1368-1644 C.E.) and Quing (1644-1911 C.E.) dynastic styles of architecture. Hsi Lai translates as “coming west,” and this temple and monastery were founded by the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Order (in the Chinese Mahayana tradition) to spread the teachings of the Buddha to the Western Hemisphere.

You will enter through the Temple’s stunning gateway and enter first in Bodhisattva Hall, dedicated to several enlightened sages, or “Buddhas in training,” and displaying their golden statues. To your left is the Information Center, where bi-lingual volunteers will provide you with a 40-minute self-guided audio tour pack. On your tour you will visit the Arhat Garden; the Avalokitesvara Garden; the elaborate Courtyard with its four lions; the Main Shrine dedicated to Sakyamuni Buddha, Prince Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism; the Fo Guang Yuan Hsi Lai Art Gallery; the Translation Center; the Auditorium; the Meditation Hall; and the Memorial Pagoda that sits atop the temple grounds.

The Temple runs an after-school enrichment program for K-6 grade students, as well as provides weekend classes and special workshops for adults interested in Chinese culture and Buddhism, meditation, or Dharma instrument instruction. The Temple also boasts the Buddha’s Light Symphony Orchestra, the Buddha’s Light Chorus, and the Hsi Lai Chinese Drum Troupe, as well as hosting special events. Call the Information Office for specific times and dates. The temple is open 9:00-5:00 daily. There is handicapped parking, all levels are wheelchair accessible by elevator, and all areas are traversable by ramps.

Depending upon how much time you’d like to spend in the Temple, you may want to structure your day to include a visit to the 99 Ranch Market, located very near the Temple at 1625 Azusa Avenue, Hacienda Heights, 626-839-2899. This is one of 30 Asian supermarkets founded by the Taiwanese-born American, Roger H. Chen, so-named because the number 99 is considered by the Chinese to be lucky.
Most of the market’s customers are Chinese American, but the chain sells a wide range of imported food products and merchandise from Hong Kong, Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines, as well as some domestic products made by Chinese American companies. The language used in the stores is Mandarin Chinese, but some announcements are often made in English as well. You may feel as if you need your passport, but a visit to this market is an amazing experience not to be missed, and you will definitely find that special Asian ingredient you despaired of securing!

Lunch. Just below the Main Shrine in the Hsi Lai Temple is the Dining Hall, where you may enjoy a vegetarian buffet for $7 weekdays from 11:30-1:30 and weekends from 11:30-2:30. Next to the Dining Hall is the Tea Room, serving lighter fare, and the Book Store.

Or, you may wish to journey to Whittier and enjoy a meal with meat. The well-recommended Silver Palace Restaurant, serving Schezuan food, is located at 15326 Whittier Blvd., 562-947-4043. Many like the inexpensive Grand Buffet, an elaborate Chinese buffet at 11885 Whittier Blvd., 562-692-8997. Some swear by the New Canton Restaurant, at 13015 Philadelphia St., 562-698-7315. The latter two are very near the afternoon’s concert venue.

Early Afternoon. If you’ve spent the day at the Hsi Lai Temple, you may wish to head straight to the concert. To deepen your state of serenity before an afternoon of stirring music, though, you may wish to enjoy an Asian spa experience. The Greenleaf Massage Spa, located at 7049 Greenleaf Ave., 562-360-9585 offers a range of massage experiences at extremely reasonable prices in a relaxing setting. It’s a quiet retreat on the busy main street of Uptown Whittier!

4:00 p.m. – The Concert

At the corner of Painter Avenue and Philadelphia Street in Whittier you will find the Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts. Just east of the Shannon Center in the Whittier College Memorial Chapel, Chorale Bel Canto will sing two cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, Cantata 80, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (based upon Martin Luther’s famous hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” and Cantata 11, The Ascension Oratorio. Join the singers in a patio reception following the concert.

Evening. Conclude your Asian day in Whittier by dining at one of its Japanese restaurants: Amachi at 6729 Greenleaf Ave., 562-698-1510, or Azabu Sushi at 13119 E. Philadelphia St., 562-789-0881. The Pasadena Star News recently gave Amachi two stars and Azabu three stars. A close friend of mine will only eat salmon at Amachi!