JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) A Bach Album Excerpts from the sleeve notes

A Homage to J S Bach of Leipzig by His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts of London

The scene is a large room in the Thomasschule, Leipzig, during the winter of 1749/50. An unusual ensemble has gathered to prepare an equally unusual offering to the venerable Cantor of the Thomaskirche, Johann Sebastian Bach. To the left of a chamber organ in the centre of the room are a handful of university students – a few singers and two string basses. On the other side of the organ, an enlarged group of the city’s professional musicians, the Stadtpfeiffer, who have by custom played the brass parts – whether trumpet, horn, Zink (cornett) or trombone (sackbut) – in the music that Bach has composed during his quarter-century of service to Leipzig’s two principal churches.

Among these town musicians is a visiting Italian who has told of the glorious renown in which the cornetts and sackbuts of Venice and many other cities were held in former times. They have organised the present event to give the Cantor a surprise: not only to pay homage to him, but also perhaps gently to rebuke him for so seldom writing, in his many cantatas, anything other than humble doubling parts for the highly expressive, but now antique, instruments. Anna Magdalena Bach has helped them by discreetly raiding her husband’s library to find suitable works for the occasion.

Anna Magdalena (who is also to sing soprano) leads in her ailing husband. He sits, and the concert starts. What is this? The Sinfonia to Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir begins in all its familiar glory – but with cornetts and sackbuts replacing the usual oboes and strings! The Thomascantor sits up in his chair. Is it a look of horror on his face? – or perhaps the ghost of a smile …?

Had Lepizig had cornettists and trombonists with the expertise of those available to Gabrieli and Monteverdi … But enough of such speculation! HMSC is happy to offer, a little late for the 250th anniversary celebrations, its own homage to the endlessly adaptable genius of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Sinfonia to the cantata Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir (‘We thank you, God, we thank you’), BWV29, first heard at the inauguration of the Leipzig town council on 27 August 1731. As mentioned above, here we play the string and oboe parts on cornetts and sackbuts. The movement is itself a transcription in that the brilliant organ obbligato part is derived from the first movement of the E major Partita for unaccompanied violin, BWV1006.

Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir. The chorale melody, sung unaccompanied.

Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir. Six-part setting, BWV686, originally for organ (organo pleno, with double pedal) and published in the third part of Clavierübung, 1739. Each line of the chorale (played in semibreves in the tenor register) is foreshadowed in dense fugal entries in this superbly cumulative setting, which transcribes without alteration for two cornetts and four sackbuts with organ continuo.

Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir. The first movement of Cantata 38. In four parts with a sometimes independent continuo. The structure is similar to that of BWV686; this time the chorale in long notes is heard in the soprano (though the alto often ascends above it). There is some striking chromaticism, especially at the words ‘Sünd’ und Unrecht’. Here the voices are accompanied by a quartet of sackbuts, with continuo; in Bach’s original scoring there were also oboes and strings.

Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, Herr Gott, erhör mein Rufen! dein’ gnädig Ohr’ neig her zu mir, und meiner Bitt’ sie öffne. Denn so du willt das sehen an, was Sünd’ und Unrecht ist getan, wer kann, Herr, vor dir bleiben?

In deep distress to you I cry, Lord God, do hear my call; Your gracious ear do turn to me And open it to my appeal! For if you would take note of all The sins and evil deeds committed, Who could pass muster, Lord, before you?

Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, verse 5, as it is heard as the final chorale of Cantata 38; scoring reduced as for track 4.

Ob bei uns ist die Sünden viel, bei Gott ist viel mehr Gnade, sein’ Hand zu helfen hat kein Ziel, wie gross auch sei der Schade. Er ist allein der gute Hirt, der Israel erlössen wird aus seinen Sünden allen.

Though sins are plentiful among us, Far greater is God's mercy; His helping hand, it knows no bounds, However much harm be done. He alone is our good shepherd, Who will deliver Israel Of all its many sins.

14 Canons, BWV1087, on the first eight notes of the bass from the Aria of the ‘Goldberg’ Variations. This set of ingenious canons was unknown until 1974 when it came to light in France, written on a blank page in Bach’s own working copy of the ‘Goldberg’ Variations. The canons, composed circa 1744-47, are not fully written out, signs or extra clefs being used to suggest where the extra, canonic voices should enter. Each canon is ‘perpetual’, i.e. repeats, and thus can continue in circles any number of times. No instrumentation is indicated, and to some extent this may be an ‘abstract’ work for study. Various performing versions have been prepared, for example for strings, and for two harpsichords. As far as I am aware this is a first for cornetts and sackbuts.

(1) Canon simplex. The eight-note theme is heard in combination with its retrograde (reversed) version.

(2) all’ roverscio. The same with the theme inverted (upside down).

(3) Beede vorigen Canones zugleich. motu recto e contrario. The theme combined with its inversion, four beats apart.

(4) motu contrario e recto. The same but with the inversion, preceding the theme, in the lower part.

(5) Canon duplex a 4. Bottom two parts as in No. 3, together with an ornate descant which also combines in canon with its own inversion.

(6) Canon simplex über besagtes Fundament a 3. Above the simple bass, a chromatic descant heard in canon with its own inversion.

(7) Idem a 3. Again above the simple bass, another canon in inversion, this time with the entries only one beat apart.

(Pause)

(8) Canon simplex a 3, il soggetto in alto. Canon in inversion, but with the theme set as a descant in the alto.

(9) Canon in unisono post semifusam a 3. The theme is now back in the bass again; above it, a straightforward two-part canon, but at the closest possible interval, a single semiquaver!

(Pause)

(10) Alio modo, per syncopationes et per ligaturas a 2. Not, strictly speaking, a canon; the simple bass is heard against a descant ‘through syncopations and ties’. Followed by Evolutio: the same thing, but entirely the other way up.

(11) Canon duplex übers Fundament a 5. Above the bass, two parts (one of them chromatic) that are both heard, simultaneously, in inverted canon – a wonderful feat of technique.

(12) Canon duplex über besagte Fundamental-Noten a 5. Another piece of mind-boggling cleverness: the same technique as No. 11 except that the top part imitates at one beat’s distance, and the second part at two beats’. To cap it all, all five parts start off with the eight notes of the main theme, either right way up or inverted. The bass is in augmentation (twice as slow).

(Pause)

(13) Canon triplex a 6. Three bars of concentrated ingenuity: three parts each of which is imitated in inversion at the distance of one bar. The result is hypnotically bell-like. This is the piece a manuscript of which Bach is holding in his famous 1746 portrait by Elias Gottlob Haussmann.

(14) Canon a 4 per Augmentationem at Diminutionem. The set culminates in this unique feat of musical intellect, a four-part ‘puzzle canon’ written as a single line of rapid notes (here played by the cornett), without any indication of where or how the other voices enter. The solution is implicit, and it turns out that the other three voices (brought in one by one in our performance) are respectively in augmentation and inversion (twice as slow and upside down); in double augmentation (four times as slow); and in quadruple augmentation and inversion (eight times as slow and upside down) – this fourth voice bringing us full circle by forming the eight-note ground bass theme with which we started!

O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht, BWV118. A beautiful single-movement chorale setting from about 1736/7, and the one work in this programme that we perform as originally scored by Bach. It was first published among the cantatas (thus its low BWV number), but more properly belongs among the motets, since like most of the latter it was evidently intended for a burial or memorial service. It exists in two versions: the first, perhaps for outdoor performance, for voices and wind instruments alone (evidently without continuo); the second with strings, oboes and continuo. It is the earlier version that you hear here, though we have followed the second in adding a repeat that allows an additional verse of the hymn to be sung (requiring some small changes to the vocal parts). The cornett and three sackbuts are joined by two ‘litui’; this term, unique in Bach’s output, refers to the ancient Roman ‘J’-shaped trumpet, much associated with funeral music. The parts are suitable for B flat trumpets, as heard here.

O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht, mein Hort, mein Trost, mein Zuversicht, auf Erden bin ich nur ein Gast und drückt mich sehr der Sünden Last. Ich hab vor mir ein schweres Reis zu dir ins himmlisch Paradeis, da ist mein rechtes Vaterland, daran du sein Blut hast gewandt.

O Jesus Christ, light of my life, My treasure, consolation, hope, On this earth I am but a guest; Sin's burden much distresses me. Ahead of me a trying journey To you in heavenly paradise Where my true fatherland I find On which His blood was spent.

Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein und wissen nicht, wo aus noch ein, und finden weder Hilf noch Rat, ob wir gleich sorgen früh und spät, so ist dies unser Trost allein, dass wir zusammen insgemein dich anrufen, o treuer Gott, um Rettung aus der Angst und Not.

Whenever we in deep distress Do not know where to turn, Find neither help nor sound advice Although we fret from morn till night, It is our only consolation That we, together, as a whole Pray to Thee, faithful God: Save us from fear and misery.

Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein, BWV431. See track 11. Here played on wind instruments. (One of the duties of the Leipzig Stadtpfeiffer was to play chorales from the church towers on high feast-days.)

Vor deinen Thron tret ich. This late masterpiece is one of the so-called ‘Eighteen Chorales’ for organ that Bach revised, probably in 1744-47, mostly drawing on works that he had written considerably earlier. The present piece, as Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein (BWV668), was in fact based on BWV641 (track 12) – hardly recognisable as all the affective decoration of the chorale melody is shorn away, and furthermore each line of the chorale is now preceded by a new contrapuntal introduction, resulting in a much longer piece. As with BWV687 (track 5) every other fugal entry is upside down, the resulting structure being of almost other-wordly lightness and grace.

Finally, on his death-bed Bach dictated some further small changes to the piece, also changing the title to that of another hymn sung to the same tune, Vor deinen Thron tret ich (‘I appear before Your throne’). It was in this form that his sons would print the piece, as their father’s musical ‘last words’, as an epilogue to the unfinished Art of Fugue.

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland. The following five tracks are devoted to settings of Luther¹s great Advent hymn after St Ambrose. Here verse 1 is heard unaccompanied.

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, der Jungfrauen Kind erkannt, dess sich wundert alle Welt: Gott solch Geburt ihm bestellt.

Now come, the heathens' saviour, Declared the Virgin's child, Who makes the whole world wonder That God accorded him such birth.

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland. This and tracks 18 and 20 form the great trilogy of settings of the chorale that Bach included among the ‘Eighteen Chorales’. The present setting, BWV659, adorns the tune in the style of an Italian concerto slow movement, above a slow walking bass that seems pregnant with the soon-to-be-revealed power of Christ. The main addition to this setting, in the process of revision, was the addition of the rhapsodic coda, entirely absent in the original version.

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, verse 3. The final movement of Cantata No 36 is here transposed down a third and provided with the text of an intermediate verse of the hymn. (In the cantata is has the same text as track 19.)

Sein Lauf kam von Vater her und kehrt’ wieder zum Vater, führ hinunter zu der Höll’ und wieder zu Gottes Stuhl.

He ventured out from the Father And will return to the Father, Descending down to hell And rising again to God's throne.

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland. BWV660, again from the ‘Eighteen’. An extraordinary setting for due bassi (originally, at the organ, left hand and pedal), using the first five notes of the tune as a repeated canonic motif that alternates with Italianate running sequences. The chorale itself, decorated in a contrasting style, is in the top part.

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland. Another cantata last movement, this time from BWV62, once again transposed down to match the instrumental settings; though this time with its original Doxology text.

Lob sei Gott, dem Vater, g’tan; Lob sei Gott, sei’m ein’gen Sohn, Lob sei Gott, dem heil’gen Geist immer und in Ewigkeit.

Praise to God, the Father, be, Praise to God, his only Son, Praise to God, the Holy Ghost, Always, in all eternity.

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland. BWV661, last of the settings of this tune in the ‘Eighteen’, a magnificent three-part fugue creating a moto perpetuo of quavers, the subject based of course on the opening motif of the chorale. The tune appears in the fourth, lowest part (originally the pedals).

Sei Lob und Preis mit Ehren. To end where we began, another festive movement from Cantata 29, with strings and oboes duly replaced by cornetts and sackbuts.

Sei Lob und Preis mit Ehren, Gott, Vater, Sohn, heiligem Geist! Der woll’ in uns vermehren, Was er uns aus Gnaden verheist, dass wir ihm fest vertrauen, gänzlich verlass’n auf ihn, von Herzen auf ihn bauen, dass uns’r Herz, Mut und Sinn ihm tröstlich soll’n anhangen; drauf singen wir zur Stund’: Amen! wir werden’s erlangen, glaub’n wir aus Herzens Grund.

Lauded and praised with honour be God Father, Son and Holy Ghost! That He in us may multiply What He to us in mercy pledged, That we should place our faith in Him, Fully on relying on Him, and Trust Him with all our heart, So that our heart, courage and mind May find comfort in Him; Thus, at this hour, let us sing: Amen, we shall achieve it, If we believe with all our heart.