October 28: Vocal Works (Various Artists)

Bach goes to synagogue, or the synagogue came to Bach, or God did it.

We are finally done with the extended Jewish High Holiday season — is mild exhaustion sacrilegious? — and the tunes I sang with my neighbors still reverberate, as they’re designed to.

At the heart of it all is Kol Nidrei, sung at the outset of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It’s a look-forward absolution from God to all of us for all the promises we’re bound to break in the coming year. The other major prayers of the holiday require us to strike our chests and recite in song the litany of terrible things we did in the year previous, while acknowledging that God’s already decided our fate in the coming year.

It’s all better than it sounds! Religion is at its best when it forces us to confront our failings and confusions, when it acknowledges all the uncanniness and beauty and dread that comes with being alive. Kol Nidrei distills all of that for me, in a tragic song.

The melody has been passed down for generations, and begin like this (sung by Cantor Ari Schwartz):

The best secular interpretation was performed by the late genius cellist Jacqueline du Pré, a convert to Judaism:

Anyway, at the end of the holidays, I wasn’t expecting to hear Kol Nidrei’s echoes in the Adagio of Bach’s Easter Oratorio:

They’re not perfect analogues, but I’d call them cousins, just like the religions themselves. Bach probably did not know the ancient Jewish lament, and the rabbis certainly weren’t studying the Easter Oratorio. Is there something to that rhythmic motif that reifies a religious feeling across cultures?

Perhaps the musical echo between the religions is itself a manifestation of holiness.

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This post covers a varied set of vocal works: BWV 237-242, 246, 247, 249 (the Easter Oratorio), 1081-3, and 1088. The Easter Oratorio excerpts are by Ton Koopman’s Amsterdam Ensemble, and everything else was performed by the Bachakademie conducted by Helmuth Rilling.

My highlights:

The inimitable Thomas Quasthoff’s long, round notes in the arioso for bass, BWV 1088:

This is the third time we’ve heard the tune from BWV 270, most famously in the St. Matthew’s Passion, and borrowed by Paul Simon for his “American Tune”:

Bach repeats it a fourth time in BWV 271 (the guy knew when he had a hit), but these ending chords are different — check out the beautiful suspended-chord denouement:

Round and round in the Sanctus in D Major, BWV 241:

Dig this double duet orchestration of the Recitative of the Easter Oratorio, the men preceding the women:

A perfect little ending to the small choral piece, Da der Herr Christ zu Tische sass, BWV 285, a sneak-attack Picardy third closes us out.

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We’re soon winding up my Year of Bach (but not the blog, more on that soon). Here’s what’s to come — there are many of catchall posts since my listening uncharacteristically had no system:

• Miscellaneous keyboard works I: BWV 802-5, 818-9, 825-6, 828-831, 836-7, 841-3, 896, 910, 916

• Miscellaneous keyboard works II: 924-932, 939-942, 948, 950, 954-5, 963-971 (including the Italian Concerto), 989-991, 993, 994

• Cantatas: BWV 16, 27, 40, 43, 107, 117, 118, 120-125, 127-128, 133, 137-138, 143-146, 148-149 (Helmuth Rilling)

• Miscellaneous works and reconstructed works: BWV 1000, 1013, 1025-9, 1044-5, 1059, 1063, the Canons: BWV 1072-1078, 1086-7, 1127

• Violin Sonatas and Partitas: BWV 1001-3, 1005-1006 (Jascha Heifetz)

• The Chaconne and the Meaning of Life: BWV 1004 (Itzhak Perlman)