October Program Notes: Bach’s Wedding Cantata

Johann Sebastian Bach with sons Gottfried Heinrich, Carl Philipp Emanuel and Wilhelm Friedemann

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C Major, BWV 1066

It’s worth remembering that the Baroque era (1600–1750) was an age of breathtaking scientific achievement. Monteverdi’s early opera L’Orfeo was roughly contemporaneous with Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter’s largest moons; Henry Purcell moved in the same London circles as Isaac Newton; Bach, Handel, and Domenico Scarlatti were toddlers when Newton published his Principia Mathematica and young adults when Edmund Halley identified the comet that now bears his name.

Baroque composers reflected the scientific temper of their times in myriad ways, not the least of which was their near-mania for classifying things, organizing them and coming up with principles concerning their function. The humble dance suite did not escape their scrutiny, and by the late Baroque a standard framework had developed for what was once an informal potpourri of short pieces. Four dances were considered de rigueur – allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue. The dances were routinely structured in binary, i.e. two-part, form; some might be arranged in pairs, the first dance repeated da capo. Apart from those guidelines, composers remained free to indulge themselves; they might open with an overture or prelude, and/or proffer a showy digestif at the end. In addition, abundant stocks of optional dances – passepieds, minuets, forlanes, gavottes, and bourrées – provided access to a broad variety of add-ons.

Bach’s many suites stand proudly as core repertory for their respective instruments – clavier, violin, flute, ‘cello, and lute. The four orchestral suites BWV 1066–9, together with the six “Brandenburg” concertos BWV 1046–51, form the backbone of Bach’s surviving orchestral output. Although the Brandenburgs were published as a matched set, the orchestral suites were not; they came about piecemeal during Bach’s first decade in Leipzig (1723–1733) with Suite No. 1, and perhaps even an early version of Suite No. 2, possibly dating from Bach’s tenure in Cöthen (1717–23). Unlike their concerted brethren, the orchestral suites have one foot in the opera house, stemming as they do from a happy Baroque tradition of concocting mixed-bag suites from popular operas and ballets. As a result, the orchestral suites display a relatively cavalier attitude towards layout (none includes an allemande, for example) and invariably begin with a festive overture in the grand French manner, combining regal pomp with infectious high spirits.

Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C Major, BWV 1066 is by far the most old-fashioned and French-flavored member of the group. Of its six dances, four are doubled in the dance-alternate-da capo manner that had been fashionable in Lully’s day (late 17th century) but was considered rather fuddy-duddy by the 1730s. Following the stately ouverture comes a distinctly French courante, characterized by shifting metric accents. (Merely tapping one’s foot to a courante can be tricky, in fact.) A paired gavotte – its signature rhythm is a double upbeat, i.e. three-four-ONE – savors of yet more Gallic fragrance, while the Italian forlane in fourth place seems rather like a courante gone wild. A paired menuet evokes courtly punctilio, but the bourrée throws good breeding to the winds in a rambunctious, basket-of-puppies romp. Composure – and dignity – is regained in the concluding passepied, a triple-meter dance that anticipates the waltz of a later era.

Weichet nur, betrübe Schatten, BWV 202 (The Wedding Cantata)

When Oscar Hammerstein II included “silver white winters that melt into springs” among Maria von Trapp’s favorite things, he was tapping into one of humanity’s oldest metaphors for rebirth and renewal. And there’s just nothing like a wedding to complement that seasonal shift as winter gloom gives way to warmth, light, and new life. Thus Bach’s winsome “Wedding” Cantata BWV 202 opens by entreating “Yield I say, ye brooding shadows, frost and tempests, take your rest!” and then informs us that the world becomes new again. The libretto even anticipates Tennyson’s “In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love” by observing “when Flora’s glory is adorned…e’en hearts in passion triumph” – clear enough, if a bit bombastic. No matter: wedding music of all stripes, Bach’s included, is always allowed unlimited indulgence in high-flying metaphors and fits of treacly sentiment.

Unfortunately, we don’t know just for whose wedding Cantata 202 was written, nor do we have any concrete evidence as to when Bach wrote it. Even the name of the librettist has gone missing. Since nobody knows anything, naturally everybody has an opinion. Best guess assigns the cantata to Bach’s years in Cöthen, although a later origin in Leipzig cannot be ruled out, given that the only surviving manuscript – a slipshod copy by 13-year-old student Johannes Ringk – is securely dated 1730.

BWV 202 is a solo cantata – i.e., for a single voice and no chorus, in this case a soprano supported by oboe and strings. It consists of five arias separated by four short recitatives. The haunting opening number Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten (Yield I say, ye brooding shadows) paints a delicate portrait of winter chills via gentle upwards arpeggios and an opulently embellished oboe melody that engages in a tender dialogue with the soprano. The aria’s initial adagio tempo shifts into andante as the text hopes that, with the onset of spring “Flora’s mirth will our breast naught but merry joy now furnish.”

A recitative Die Welt wird wieder neu (The world again is new) sets the stage for the joyous aria Phoebus eilt mit schnellen Pferden (Phoebus hies with darting horses), telling us of Phoebus (a.k.a. Apollo, the sun-god) racing throughout the newly-reawakened world; in the following recitative we hear how the bloom of spring incites thoughts of love. Ardor intensifies in the aria Wenn die Frühlingslüfte streichen (When the vernal breezes ramble), kisses are exchanged, and in Und dieses ist das Glücke we find that “two spirits one rich gem discover, in which much health and blessing sparkle” – i.e., marriage vows are in the wind. Oboe, continuo, and soprano join in praising the new couple, whose love “is better than Flora’s mere passing delight.” Good wishes for a successful marriage are the subject of the recitative So sei das Band der keuschen Liebe (So let the bond of chaste affection), and with that a lilting Gavotte starts up in the orchestra. Before long, the soprano enters and concludes the festivities by bidding for the newlywed couple’s contentment to last “a thousand radiant days of favor.”

Harpsichord Concertos in D Minor, BWV 1052 and D Major, BWV 1054

Time and again, history has demonstrated that a good new musical form tends to travel as fast, and as far, as a good new joke. When Amsterdam printer Etienne Roger brought out Antonio Vivaldi’s L’estro armonico (“The Harmonious Inspiration”) in 1711, not only did he set off a publishing phenomenon but he also helped to usher in a new era in European instrumental music. Vivaldi’s set of twelve string concertos presented a brilliant solution to a pernicious problem that had arisen as instrumental music evolved beyond its formerly modest role – what to do, in the absence of a vocal text, about structure in large-scale instrumental movements. The L’estro armonico concertos opened with a rounded-off refrain that was repeated – in whole or in part – periodically throughout the movement, the refrains separated by episodic passages that were entrusted to the solo instruments. Critical to the structure was the technique of modulation (changing keys), allowing for successive statements of the refrain in assorted keys and modes; without modulation, tediousness loomed large. A tonic-key statement of the refrain typically served to provide a final wrap-up. In recognition of the form’s persistent revisiting of a central idea with a full refrain at the end, posterity has christened it ritornello form, i.e., “return” form.

The ritornello’s balance between repetition and contrast proved ideal for newly-emergent instrumental genres such as the concerto, while its innate flexibility safeguarded it from obsolescence. It could provide a basic plug-in template for harried composers scrambling to satisfy an increasingly voracious market, but for those of a more intrepid nature, ritornello also allowed for any amount of expansion, experimentation, and redesign.

L’estro armonico spread like wildfire throughout Northern Europe. Bach had a copy by 1713, most likely courtesy of his employer, Duke Johann Ernst of Sachsen-Weimar, who often provided the latest Italian concertos to his court musicians. True to form, Bach absorbed the music by the time-honored family tradition of copying scores, but in this case he went a step further and arranged many of the concertos for either organ or harpsichord. By doing so, not only did he master the forms and idioms of the Italian concerto, but he also acquired the habit of thinking of concertos as works that could be repurposed from one medium to another, a mindset that was to have far-reaching consequences.

Whether or not Bach wrote original concertos during the remainder of his Weimar appointment cannot be determined with any certainty, but the odds are favorable that he produced at least some solo concertos in his next position, as court composer to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, beginning in 1717. Under the encouragement of his music-loving prince, Bach’s creative forces flourished, particularly in secular compositions. This is the time of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Vol. I, the French and English keyboard suites, the works for unaccompanied violin, and above all the Brandenburg Concertos – of which the Fifth lays plausible claim to being Bach’s first original, i.e., non-transcribed, harpsichord concerto.

Surviving manuscripts for Bach’s harpsichord concertos are restricted to his years in Leipzig (1723-1750) so it is to that sturdy Saxon city, and the bourgeois comforts of Gottfried Zimmermann’s Coffee House on the Catherinenstrasse, that we now turn. Bach’s day job, as it were, was serving as the civic director of music and Cantor of the Thomasschule. However, for a time he also directed Leipzig’s Collegium Musicum, an ad hoc organization that presented weekly public concerts at Zimmermann’s, late Wednesday afternoons during winter and Friday evenings in the summer. The personnel were drawn largely from local university students, with additions from visiting musicians, assorted professionals, and Bach’s own sons. (No St. Thomas pupils – they were forbidden to enter Zimmermann’s, a den of iniquity that served both coffee and beer.) For repertory, Bach drew largely on his reserves of past compositions, rewriting and transcribing as necessary to accommodate the needs of the Collegium.

Twelve concertos for one up to four harpsichords (BWV 1054-65) have survived, all of them reworked from earlier (mostly violin) concertos, most likely dating back to Cöthen or even Weimar (i.e., before 1717). One – BWV 1065 for four claviers – is a transcription of a Vivaldi concerto. In some cases, the original concerto has survived, as is the case with the Violin Concerto in E Major BWV 1042, transcribed as the D Major Harpsichord Concerto BWV 1054. Alas, manuscript evidence isn’t always so accommodating; no original exists for the D Minor Harpsichord Concerto BWV 1052, but enterprising musicians have created eminently plausible reconstructions of the lost underlying violin concerto.

Harpsichord Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052

Bach took a three-month sabbatical from his Leipzig duties in early 1726. When he returned he presented, for the third Sunday after Easter, a new cantata (BWV 146) that opened with a grand ritornello for organ and orchestra – his second version of the (lost) early violin concerto that we know as the Harpsichord Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052. To follow that monumental opening sinfonia, Bach adapted the concerto’s second movement for the cantata’s only chorus by the simple expedient of layering four suave vocal lines over the extant movement. In 1728 Bach incorporated the concerto’s finale into Cantata 188, and finally transcribed the entire work as a harpsichord concerto for the Collegium Musicum.

The D Minor concerto is likely among Bach’s earliest, written in Cöthen (or even Weimar) in response to Vivaldi’s models, even though the harpsichord transcription dates from the Leipzig years. The first movement is a marvel of economy, opening with a sweeping unison statement that provides, one way or another, all of the movement’s melodic resources. The adagio also commences with an extended unison that becomes the underlying bass for a series of elaborated cantilena passages, the whole concluding with a restatement of that opening unison. The closing triple-meter allegro clearly evokes Vivaldi’s foursquare rhythmic style, paying an appropriate tribute to the Venetian master’s potent influence.

Harpsichord Concerto in D Major, BWV 1054

Bach’s Violin Concerto in E Major, BWV 1042 is generally agreed to have been a product of the Cöthen years (1717-1723). While it wears its debt to Vivaldi proudly, particularly in the straightforward rhythm of the opening movement and the ostinato slow movement, Bach’s vivid musical personality makes itself felt in the rich contrapuntal texture, meticulously developed motives, and distinctly French rondeau finale.

The harpsichord transcription dates from the 1730s, transposed down a full step to D Major, most likely to accommodate the harpsichord’s range. BWV 1054 offers us a chance to witness Bach’s second thoughts about an earlier work, for example as he re-notates the opening figure with greater precision. But even more fascinating is his matchless contrapuntal skill as he deftly converts a violin solo into idiomatic and virtuoso keyboard writing, creating what is for all practical intents and purposes an altogether new concerto.

– Scott Foglesong, Scholar-in-Residence