VANCOUVER BACH FESTIVAL 2019 the artists friday august 2 at 7:30 pm | christ church cathedral Les Boréades de Montréal bach cantatas Francis Colpron artistic director Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): soloists: Komm, du süsse Todesstunde bwv 161 Dorothee Mields for alto, tenor, chorus, two recorders, strings & basso continuo soprano (Cantata for the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity – Weimar, 1716) Alex Potter alto Johann Sebastian Bach: Samuel Boden tenor Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen bwv 12 for alto, tenor, chorus, trumpet, oboe, basoon, strings & basso continuo Matthew Brook (Weimar, 1714) bass-baritone and Mark Edwards harpsichord INTERVAL with the support of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784): Concerto in D major f. 41 and the canada council circulation and touring programme for harpsichord, strings & basso continuo (Dresden, 1733-1746) Allegro Generously supported by Andante Presto Mark De Silva, Matthew White & Catherine Webster, Johann Sebastian Bach: and Brich dem hungrigen dein Brot bwv 39 David McMurtry for soprano, alto, bass, chorus, two recorders, two oboes, strings & basso continuo (Cantata for the First Sunday after Trinity – Leipzig, 1726) Pre-concert chat with host Matthew White at 6:45: Matthew Brook THE UNAUTHORISED USE OF ANY VIDEO OR AUDIO RECORDING DEVICE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED earlymusic.bc.ca Bach Cantatas Vancouver Bach Festival 2019 1 PARTNERS board of directors Early Music Vancouver gratefully acknowledges the assistance and support of: Chris Guzy president government support Fran Watters vice president Ron Kruschen We acknowledge the support of treasurer the Province of British Columbia Tony Knox past president Ilia Korkh secretary foundations Kathleen Bourchier THE BRENNAN SPANO Spencer Corrigal cpa,ca FAMILY FOUNDATION Sherrill Grace THE DRANCE FAMILY Melody Mason EARLY MUSIC VANCOUVER FUND Tim Rendell cpa,ca Johanna Shapira 2019-20 production partners Ingrid Söchting EMV’s performances at the Chan Centre are presented in partnership with the Chan Centre for the Per- Vincent Tan forming Arts, with the support of the Chan Endowment Fund at the University of British Columbia. ÷ pacific José Verstappen cm baroque orchestra artistic director emeritus alexander weimann ÷ MUSIC director staff Matthew White executive & artistic director Nathan Lorch business manager Michelle Herrewynen development manager Jonathan Evans production coordinator production partners in victoria bc Laina Tanahara marketing & volunteer coordinator Mei Chi Chin corporate support summer production assistant Jan Gates Rosedale on Robson Suite Hotel event photographer VANCOUVER, BC Tony Knox Barrister & Solicitor, Arbitrator Tel: 604 263 5766 Cell: 604 374 7916 Fax: 604 261 1868 Email: [email protected] Murray Paterson 1291 West 40th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. 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In helping him pack up this varied musical treasure chest, it struck me that he was relatively unemotional about a process that I would have found stressful. That was, until he noticed my hungry eyes on his “Complete Collection of the Sacred Cantatas of J.S. Bach” led by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhardt. The significance of this particular collection in my own life made the almost feral look on his face impossible to misunderstand. There was no way I was walking out the door with this part of his collection in my hands. In addition to the audio recordings, each of the more than 200 Cantata bwv 161, Komm, du süße Todesstunde (Come, cantatas included in the collection came with programme Sweet Hour of Death), was written in 1716, and like some notes, texts and translations as well as the full score of every of the Funeral Cantatas we heard last year, explores the work printed on extra-large, “LP box” sized paper. As excited idea of death as salvation from earthly suffering and as a as I am by the wonders of online resources like allofbach.com, path to everlasting union with Jesus. In the embracing and the memory of the slower, luxurious process of taking out an affirmative opening alto aria, the poet Salomon Franck LP randomly from a span of albums on a shelf, setting it up creates a surprising metaphor comparing death with honey on the turntable, searching out a large enough, empty desk in in the mouth of a lion. By scoring this aria for recorders, Bach the library, opening up the score broadly with two hands, and supports this unlikely comparison and transforms the horror then listening to something new and extraordinary, played by of death into consoling and sensual sweetness. Throughout artists imbued with the spirit of discovery, makes me feel like this first aria, the passion chorale (O Haupt voll Blut und I am still nineteen. It was like being given a passport to travel Wunden / O Sacred Head Now Wounded) appears in the to the moon. background as a subtle reminder of Christ having made This was a ground-breaking and iconic project that introduced the same journey into the jaws of death on our behalf. The me (and a much wider world of music lovers) to the sounds not tenor aria is one of the most beautiful and hopeful in the just of period instruments but to the seemingly inexhaustible tenor repertoire and uses a simple, hypnotically repeating wonders of Bach’s rarely performed but reliably brilliant semi-tone device in the melody that emphasizes the second sacred cantatas. It is significant that since the first complete syllable of the word Verlangen (longing) to demonstrate the set of recordings was finished, this seemingly insurmountable believer’s desire for ecstatic union with Christ in death. The task, involving roughly 60 CDS worth of material, has been following alto recitative and chorus also use the recorders repeated by several other ensembles and prominent musical to brilliant effect. Listen in particular for the sound of “death leaders including Masaaki Suzuki, John Eliot Gardiner, Ton bells” evoked by the use of the recorders and pizzicato on Koopman and Helmuth Rilling. What I love about the first open strings setting the text “So schlage doch, du letzter recordings by Harnoncourt and Leonhardt, however, is that Stundenschlag! / Therefore strike, O final hour.” An earlier their curiosity and iconoclastic challenge of performance cantata by Melchior Hoffman, “Schlage Doch Gewünste conventions are somehow forever captured in the sound. Stunde / Haste to strike, oh longed for hour “, using an almost The odd squeak and imperfection doesn’t hide the obvious identical text, employs an actual treble bell sounding over creative energy and risk-taking involved. After almost 50 pizzicato strings to create a similar effect of a clock ticking in years these performances still hold up against all the versions the final seconds before the final death knell is rung. that came after. José can be forgiven for holding these ones back. As with bwv 161, Bach composed the music of Cantata bwv 12, Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (Weeping, Lamenting, Though we now have multiple recordings of each of Bach’s Worrying, Fearing) to poetry by Salomon Franck. It opens cantatas to choose from, there is still nothing like hearing with a dark sinfonia featuring the oboe, which transitions them performed live. I cannot imagine a Bach Festival in into one of the most effective four-part choruses Bach ever which we did not make an effort to share at least a few of wrote. It plays dramatically on a sighing motif echoed in these underperformed jewels. voice after voice creating sharp dissonances. Significantly, The first two works on the programme are “early cantatas” he later used this material as the model for the “Crucifixus” written when Bach was in his twenties working at the Weimar section of the Credo in his B Minor Mass. The only recitative, Court. Like many of the works written during this fruitful “Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal in das Reich Gottes eingehen period, they stand out