November 11: Cantatas (Bachakademie; Helmuth Rilling, conductor)

Feeling elegiac during my final set of choral works

On vacations, to my detriment, I always feel that background clock ticking:

“Nice place, glad to be here, let’s orient.”

“Three more days to go.”

“Halfway through.”

“Gotta pack up tomorrow. I’ll get a head start on my email.”

I find it’s the same for all my projects big and small: the feel of an arc, and the sense of an ending.

This marks my 29th and final post covering Bach’s cantatas. These works were almost entirely unfamiliar to me last year — 65 hours of ‘new’ music, bursting with bar-by-bar brilliance.

The cantatas won’t ever be my go-to Bach fix. Something crucial feels absent when I listen through AirPods, or in my living room. These pieces belong in a church, sung in a language I don’t understand, declaring a faith that isn’t mine.

Even so, there were many highlights: In February, I heard a hip-hop ear worm in BWV 150, and I found myself overwhelmed on the Metro North train listening to BWV 140. The famous Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring caught me by surprise in April. And in June, I discovered the greatest contemporary cantata band: Hans Christoph Rademann’s Bach Academie Stuttgart.

As the year winds down, I feel sad to see them “go.”

Nothing about this is logical — I can still stream a half-dozen well-recorded versions of each cantata on demand. But now there won’t be any more of them for me to listen to.

It’s November, and my project is coming to a close. Even Bach is finite, if only on the first listen.

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This post covers another face-melting eight hour choral playlist. (These were written to be listened to on Sundays only, one at a time!) We’re listening to BWV’s 16, 27, 40, 43, 107, 117, 118, 120-125, 127-128, 133, 137-138, 143-146, 148, and 149, as performed by the Bachakademie, and conducted by Helmuth Rilling. Highlights below!

Bach writes a melancholy dance in 9/8 as an intro to BWV 123. We’re in a liminal space between minor and major the whole time. Lovely and beguiling:

Exquisite, emotional singing by soprano Arlene Augér in BWV 138:

The recitative opening in BWV 27 is a master class in harmonic suspension:

A hip modulation in the aria of BWV 43, I’m not sure what’s even going on in these five bars (the score’s measure 20 starts at 0:04 of the clip):

Our baritone Philippe Huttenlocher sings an epic note in BWV 117. Ten seconds is a long time to control this tone. Bach tosses on another long note just afterwards, almost as a challenge. Who could have sung this capably in a small town 300 years ago?

I remembered the sinfonia of BWV 146 — it was repurposed from the Harpsichord Concertos (BWV 1052):

The dopest bit from that sinfonia is the shredding organ break:

Love how in this alto aria from BWV 148, the voice is supported by five musicians: two of them are oboes pinned in pretty parallel thirds, and another is a bassoon squonking like a goose:

Peter Schreier shows up for the last time this year, how nice to hang with him again. Here’s a short clip of the tenor aria in BWV 16, the voice in harmony with viola and cello. Auf wiedersehen, Peter:

The vast majority of Bach’s cantatas end with a short, sweet chorale, typically featuring just the chorus. The last track on my 65 hour cantata playlist was the chorale of BWV 149, and it ends with a little trumpet fanfare! I smiled — it was a little present for me from Bach, the universe, chance, and/or God. Pick whichever floats your boat.