Masaaki Suzuki Conducts the Bach Collegium Japan Wednesday, October 28, 2015 at 8:00 Pm This Is the 553Rd Concert in Koerner Hall
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Masaaki Suzuki conducts the Bach Collegium Japan Wednesday, October 28, 2015 at 8:00 pm This is the 553rd concert in Koerner Hall Bach Collegium Japan Masaaki Suzuki , Musical Director Joanne Lunn , soprano Masamitsu San’nomiya , oboe & oboe d’amore Kiyomi Suga , flauto traverso Ryo Terakado , violin Yukie Yamaguchi , violin Mika Akiha , viola Emmanuel Balssa , cello Frank Coppieters , contrabasso ALL JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH PROGRAM Trio Sonata from The Musical Offering , BWV 1079 I. Largo II. Allegro III. Andante IV. Allegro (Ryo Terakado, violin; Kiyomi Suga, traverso flute; Masaaki Suzuki, harpsichord) Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut, BWV199 (Solo Cantata for Soprano) Recitative: Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut (My heart swims in blood) Aria: Stumme Seufzer, stille Klagen (Mute sighs, silent cries) Recitative: Doch Gott muß mir genädig sein (But God must be gracious to me) Aria: Tief gebückt und voller Reue (Deeply bowed and filled with regret) Recitative: Auf diese Schmerzensreu (Upon this painful repentance) Chorale: Ich, dein betrübtes Kind (I, Your troubled child) Recitative: Ich lege mich in diese Wunden (I lay myself on these wounds) Aria: Wie freudig ist mein Herz (How joyful is my heart) (Joanne Lunn, soprano; Masamitsu San’nomiya, oboe) INTERMISSION Oboe d’amore Concerto in A Major, BWV 1055R I. [Allegro] II. Larghetto III. Allegro ma non tanto (Masamitsu San'nomiya, oboe) Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D Major, BWV 1050 I. Allegro II. Affettuoso III. Allegro (Ryo Terakado, violin; Kiyomi Suga, flute; Masaaki Suzuki, harpsichord) Chamber Music series generously supported by Media partner David G. Broadhurst [Classical 96 FM logo] Johann Sebastian Bach Born in Eisenach, Germany, March 21, 1685; died in Leipzig, Germany, July 28, 1750 Trio Sonata from The Musical Offering , BWV 1079 (1747) Musikalisches Opfer (The Musical Offering ) is a glorious summing up of Baroque fugal practice, which had its origin in one of the most memorable and best documented events of Bach’s rather uneventful life. In May 1747, Bach visited the Prussian Court of Frederick the Great in Potsdam. His second surviving son, Carl Philip Emanuel, had a position there as court harpsichordist and usually accompanied the king, who played flute, in the evening’s music- making. On May 7, however, maybe to respect ‘old’ Bach’s reputation as a formidable keyboard improviser, Bach was asked to improvise in front of the court. The newspaper reports of the time describe the king’s gracious reception of Kapellmeister Bach. He gave Bach a rather awkward theme on which to improvise and, in return, was impressed by Bach’s skill at fugal improvisation. The matter could have rested there, were it not for the fact that Bach felt that he could do better. He announced to the court that he intended “to set Frederick’s exceedingly beautiful theme to paper in a regular fugue and have it printed by means of copper engraving.” When Bach came to print the fugue several months later it had grown to include ten canons, a trio sonata, the original improvised three-part ricercare (another rather antique term for a fugue), and a six-part ricercare . For the Trio Sonata, Bach specified flute, violin, and continuo. Its four movements follow the traditional slow-fast-slow-fast pattern of the sonata da chiesa, with Frederick’s theme prevalent in the quicker movements. It is merely hinted at in the bass line of the opening Largo. In the second movement, however, the outline of the movement’s theme follows that of the ‘royal’ theme and functions as a cunning counterpoint to the theme when it appears – first in the bass, then in the flute and violin parts, six times in all. The theme is absent from the third movement which is built around the musical ‘sigh,’ a key emotional ingredient of the new, emerging North German style of composition, of which C.P.E. Bach was a leading exponent. The ‘royal’ theme is transformed in both tempo and character in the finale. Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut, BWV199 (Solo Cantata for Soprano) (1714) Bach was a practical musician. Most of his music was written for specific needs, in this case for the Sunday services of the chapel at the Weimar court where he was employed. First performed there August 12, 1714, the cantata Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut (My Heart Swims in Blood ) is written for soprano solo and an ensemble of strings plus oboe, bassoon, and continuo. The text, based on the designated Gospel reading for the day (Luke 18: 9-14), is by the Darmstadt court librarian Georg Christian Lehms and primarily concerns repentance. It is the parable of the Pharisee, obsessed with his own virtue, and the tax-collector, deeply aware of his own sins yet humbly praying for forgiveness. There are three arias, each with a repeated first section (da capo arias) and preceded by a recitative accompanied by strings. While out of line with today’s manner of seeking forgiveness, the extravagantly expressed torment of the opening recitative is declared in the spirit of the Baroque concept of piety. The first aria is a sorrowful, tear-laden atonement for sin, made all the more sincere by an aching oboe obbligato and skeletal continuo accompaniment. The second aria is in the major key and reflects a more easily uttered request for patience and understanding. In it, the voice is accompanied by strings and bassoon. Bach now inserts a short but profoundly beautiful chorale setting of the third stanza of the penitential hymn Wo sol ich fliehen hin in-between the second and third recitatives and arias. The voice is accompanied by an obbligato viola, though Bach himself is known to have used both cello and viola da gamba in the many performances of this cantata that he organised. The following recitative finds comfort through suffering, while the final aria is a joyous Handel-like movement in which soprano, oboe, and strings exuberantly offer a gigue-like message of thanks. Oboe d’amore Concerto in A Major, BWV 1055R (c.1738) The oboe d’amore, the mezzo-soprano member of the oboe family, became established in Germany around 1720, shortly before Bach moved to Leipzig. In the Saxon city, Bach found both oboists who could play the instrument and instrument makers building the slightly larger oboe, pitched a minor third lower than the standard oboe, with its distinctive pear-shaped bell. Bach asks for its expressive timbre, somewhat mellower and less nasal than the Baroque oboe, in more than 100 works. None of them survives as an original concerto (or sonata) for the instrument, however. Oboists were quick to pounce on the A major Harpsichord Concerto, BWV 1055 when musicologist Donald Frances Tovey suggested in 1935 that its origins lay in a lost concerto for oboe d’amore. The concerto was reconstructed with a fair degree of certainty by Wilfried Fischer and published in the authoritative Neue Bach Ausgabe (New Bach Edition ) in 1970. By paring back Bach’s decorative keyboard writing, Fischer uncovered the lyrical, melodic lines of a concerto whose musical character and range suggest the oboe d’amore. A flowing, spirited opening movement gives way to a contrasting plaintive lament, built over pulsing string chords and a chromatically descending bass line, rather like a chaconne. A sparkling finale rounds out this showpiece for the instrument. Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D Major, BWV 1050 (c. 1720) Bach did not give his six concertos the title Brandenburg Concertos ; this name came in 1873 from the pen of Philip Spitta, a music historian who was Bach’s second biographer. The concertos had first been published just two decades earlier, in 1850, on the centenary of Bach’s death. Before this, the Brandenburgs – music now viewed as one of the high points of the Baroque concerto – lay neglected in a Prussian library. Handwritten copies had circulated, but the main collection remained shelved from the time Bach presented it to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg in 1721. These “Six Concertos for Several Instruments” were not new compositions. Two earlier versions of the Fifth Concerto have survived, one similar to the Margrave’s concerto, the other, lesser known, with substantial differences. The collection demonstrates Bach’s ability to both write in the latest Italian style and to master all the varied traditions of the Italian and German concerto form. Each concerto has its own distinctive instrumental grouping and sound world. The unity of the six concertos comes about through their diversity. The Fifth Concerto includes a solo group (known as the concertino) made up of harpsichord, flute, and violin, with the harpsichord a clear first amongst equals. This may have come about because when Bach first met and performed for the Margrave he did so as one of the leading keyboard virtuosos of the age. Additionally, the main purpose of his visit to Berlin from rural Cöthen was to inspect a new high-end harpsichord for the Cöthen court. The flamboyant cadenza-like episode for harpsichord alone towards the end of the first movement may well have been designed to show off the potential of the new custom-built instrument, since in an earlier version of Brandenburg 5, the cadenza is shorter. The slow movement is a tender air for the three solo instruments alone, still cunningly containing the contrasts of a concerto. After this intimate chamber music, the final movement is a dance-like fugal gigue. - Program notes © Keith Horner, 2015 Bach Collegium Japan Bach Collegium Japan was founded in 1990 by Masaaki Suzuki with the aim of introducing Japanese audiences to period instrument performances of great works from the Baroque period. Comprised of both Baroque orchestra and chorus, their activities include an annual concert series of Bach’s cantatas and a number of instrumental programs.