September 18: Cantatas (Bach-Ensemble; Helmuth Rilling, conductor)
On feeling antsy, even when the music's good
Do you ever find yourself feeling impatient, even in the moments of enjoying a fleeting experience? Do you anxiously anticipate their ends? Maybe you feel a pang of guilt for not savoring what you’ve planned to enjoy?
I’ll set the stage: I’ve invested money and time to see one of my favorite musicians in concert. The music is good — sometimes even very good — but just past the halfway point, I feel the energy turn inside, steeling myself for something. I get antsy to leave, lose focus, muse internally about recent life disappointments, tomorrow’s stresses, or, at my worst, calculating the cost of the show per song: ‘Was “Kid Charlemagne” worth $12’?
This mental mischief happens to me at about a third of my concerts. It’s a huge bummer!
I’ve dug deep, trying to understand it all. As my favorite meditation guide Richard Miller says, “Every sensation, emotion, and thought you experience… is a messenger that can reveal your deepest psychological and spiritual health, harmony, and wholeness.”
Due to some poor planning at the beginning of the Year of Bach, today’s playlist of cantatas clocked seven hours. It was all very good, and it was also way too much Bach. And I love Bach!
That’s my messenger, per Miller: I savor more when I take in less. There’s a reason I did not earn a Ph.D. in music, or devote my life to mastering an instrument, and it wasn’t just fear, as I’d sometimes chided myself. I’m a generalist, a range guy, and often someone who doesn’t need the third hour of the concert.
And certainly not the seventh hour of church cantatas, no matter the brilliance.
Nevertheless, lots of highlights from these cantatas from Helmuth Rilling and the Bach-Ensemble: BWV 49-52, 54, 57-59, 61, 65-66, 71-74, 78, 83, 86, 88, 91, 94-95.
Let’s get to it.
The chorus in BWV 72 is meant to scare you straight (“Everything according to God's will alone!”):
Plucky pizz pivot in the bass aria of BWV 73 — the score just shows quarter notes, and Rilling makes a great interpretive choice for the strings here:
The intros to the bass and soprano arias of BWV 57 give off those intense Mass in B Minor vibes. The bass:
The soprano:
In the opening of BWV 49, Bach goofily plays with a chromatic theme on the organ:
BWV 52 kicks off with a sinfonia that he repurposed from the Brandenburg Concertos. This was fun to encounter unexpectedly:
Beautiful counterpoint strings supporting the singing in the alto aria from BWV 54:
A visit to the Ren Faire in BWV 61:
Loved this surprising diminished chord (on “scourgements!”) from the bass recitative of BWV 78 (0:15):
I’ll end today with clips from two chorale finales — the first with killer voice leading, from BWV 74:
The second, much sweeter, from BWV 66:
Up next: Herbert von Karajan’s Mass in B Minor
I love BWV 78, and especially "Wir eilen mit schwachen, doch emsigen Schritten", one of the most joyous duets I know. I first heard it on WQXR very late one night years ago. It turned out to be a favorite of the announcer of the midnight-to-dawn shift. It's so rhythmic one can almost dance to it--those 'eager steps' in the text. Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAZuvoz6L0Q
Ooof. With you on the third hour of a concert. Then I feel guilty for insufficient appreciation. And inferiority compared to all of the other seemingly still engaged concert goers. And miss the music anyway.