Something for a Friday: All of Bach

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Hope ferney is ok,not posted for a while.

Feeling fit as a Stradivarius, thanks, Edgey - I've spent the last week (immediately after posting last week's link) far away from anything cyber - I don't have a smartphone; I think I'd embarrass it - walking and climbing in the Peak District. (And having some of the best weather of the year as a bonus!)

Just got back - and got Bach - and only just heard the sad news about Marriner .

[EdgeleyRob]

Feeling fit as a Stradivarius, thanks, Edgey - I've spent the last week (immediately after posting last week's link) far away from anything cyber - I don't have a smartphone; I think I'd embarrass it - walking and climbing in the Peak District. (And having some of the best weather of the year as a bonus!)

Just got back - and got Bach - and only just heard the sad news about Marriner .

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

BWV 1013; Partita for Solo Flute in A minor

Another real treat this week - Bach's only piece for unaccompanied Flute, played by Marten Root in the 13th Century Old Village Church in the Utrecht village of Bunnik (which has been used before for All of Bach performances).

http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-1013/

I'm continually astonished by Bach's technical and expressive skills - the way here that harmony is communicated so clearly through a single line (even more "austere"* than the solo violin or 'cello works, which allow for double and multiple stopping to support the listener's sense of the harmony) I find breath-taking. (And, as ever in Bach's Sarabandes, the laws of physics give way to Bach's Music, and time has a coffee break.)


(* - "austere" in inverted commas, because the Music is so sensuous and "lifeful".)

[EdgeleyRob]

Another real treat this week - Bach's only piece for unaccompanied Flute, played by Marten Root in the 13th Century Old Village Church in the Utrecht village of Bunnik (which has been used before for All of Bach performances).

http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-1013/

I'm continually astonished by Bach's technical and expressive skills - the way here that harmony is communicated so clearly through a single line (even more "austere"* than the solo violin or 'cello works, which allow for double and multiple stopping to support the listener's sense of the harmony) I find breath-taking. (And, as ever in Bach's Sarabandes, the laws of physics give way to Bach's Music, and time has a coffee break.)


(* - "austere" in inverted commas, because the Music is so sensuous and "lifeful".)

Thanks ferney,very special that.
There were a couple of moments,at very high and low notes,where the flute sounded ever so slightly out of tune.
Did I imagine that ? is it something to do with the instrument used ?
I followed this too

http://www.mutopiaproject.org/ftp/BachJS/BWV1013/bwv1013/bwv1013-let.pdf

There were notes added in the playing of the Sarabande that are not in the manuscript,maybe something to do with the edition Marten Root used ?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thanks ferney,very special that.

I've only ever heard the piece once before - when I was a student and another student played it in a concert. This one was much more memorable!

There were a couple of moments,at very high and low notes,where the flute sounded ever so slightly out of tune.
Did I imagine that ? is it something to do with the instrument used ?

I didn't particularly notice this - I've grown so used to Baroque instrument tunings that they no longer sound "out-of-tune" as "in-their-own-tuning" - partly to do with the instruments, yes; pre-Boehm system ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boehm_system ) woodwind instruments would have their own individual "timbres" which had miniscule effects on the intonation - the middle registers were usually fine, but outer reaches required more imput from the performer. This meant that, like voices, each was more individual than is the case when Boehm "homogenised" the different registers. (Even after Boehm, flutes could be - ahem - temperamental: Debussy wrote for a flute that had a tuning "quirk" around about the B above middle C: the very note that the solo flute "lands" on at the lower end of the chromatic line at the start of Prelude a l'Apes-Midi d'un Faun - he expected the note to have a bit more "tang" than modern instruments give.)

I followed this too

http://www.mutopiaproject.org/ftp/BachJS/BWV1013/bwv1013/bwv1013-let.pdf

There were notes added in the playing of the Sarabande that are not in the manuscript,maybe something to do with the edition Marten Root used ?

Not necessarily - they may be his own "improvised" embellishments of the melodic line based on the sort of thing we know that Bach would have expected his performers to bring to the performance (and maybe also knowledge of the sort of decorations the player Bach specifically wrote this work for if these are in the historical redcords from the time).

[EdgeleyRob]

Ferney,many thanks as always for a wonderful informative reply

[Quarky]

"Creeping, playful waves, gently murmuring" - a forty minute secular Cantata written for the birthday of Friederich August, the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland (those are Bach's priorities) in 1734 (but not performed until two years later - as the notes explain). It's Bach's Four Rivers cycle, concerned with the four rivers Friederich would have used to get to his various power centres: the Wisla ("the longest river in Poland" - might be useful on quiz night), the Elbe, the Danube, and the Pleisse.

Recorded in Paushuize, Utrecht (building not named) in June this year, the work is performed by an (also unnamed) ensemble of 42 singers and instrumentalists, conducted by Jos van Veldhoven - appropriately for Music that reveals the answers to Life, the Universe, and Everything

http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-206/

A latecomer to this wonderful thread. As regards answers to everything, there may have been a battle of the sexes here, with the alto appearing weak and colourless in contrast to the brilliant soprano. All for authenticity in performance, and I guess the musical director had a male alto available, but I would have much preferred a full-blooded mezzo (if that is the correct counterpart).
Still, a performance full of joie de vivre!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Interesting comments, Oddy - and a belated welcome to the wonderful Thread - I see what you mean, but the joie de vivre you mention was so much to the forefront, I thought the Alto fitted in perfectly. (And isn't Joy DeVivre a Soprano? )

Recovering from the crass "audience" comments in response to the broadcast of the wonderful Triple Concerto on Essential Classics this morning, my fevered brow was suitably soothened by this week's AoB offering - the Mass in F, BWV 233. Possibly only the second time in my life I've ever heard it - makes me wonder what the blazes I've been doing wasting so much time before returning to it! Recorded nine months ago in the Great Church in Harlingen with Hans-Christoph Rademann directing a (ThVpP) ensemble of singers and instrumentalists. Put the smile back on my silly mug!

http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-233/

[EdgeleyRob]

Interesting comments, Oddy - and a belated welcome to the wonderful Thread - I see what you mean, but the joie de vivre you mention was so much to the forefront, I thought the Alto fitted in perfectly. (And isn't Joy DeVivre a Soprano? )

Recovering from the crass "audience" comments in response to the broadcast of the wonderful Triple Concerto on Essential Classics this morning, my fevered brow was suitably soothened by this week's AoB offering - the Mass in F, BWV 233. Possibly only the second time in my life I've ever heard it - makes me wonder what the blazes I've been doing wasting so much time before returning to it! Recorded nine months ago in the Great Church in Harlingen with Hans-Christoph Rademann directing a (ThVpP) ensemble of singers and instrumentalists. Put the smile back on my silly mug!

http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-233/

Thanks ferney.

What's ThVpP ? (Gotta feeling this is a silly question)

[vinteuil]

Thanks ferney.

What's ThVpP ? (Gotta feeling this is a silly question)

... probably "Thousand Voices per Part" as opposed to OVpP "one voice per part".

[ ... I do wish people wdn't use these clever-clogs abbreviations ]

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What's ThVpP ? (Gotta feeling this is a silly question)

Three Voices per Part - a choir of twelve singers: a principal singer with support from two others, known as "ripieno" singers - the Italian for "padding" or, less elegantly, "stuffing". (As an alternative to "OVpP" - One Voice per Part.)

[EdgeleyRob]

Three Voices per Part - a choir of twelve singers: a principal singer with support from two others, known as "ripieno" singers - the Italian for "padding" or, less elegantly, "stuffing". (As an alternative to "OVpP" - One Voice per Part.)

Ah of course,thanks again ferney

[Lento]

Found myself wondering if the Mass was really by Bach, not having heard it before.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Found myself wondering if the Mass was really by Bach, not having heard it before.

What ma(d/k)es you doubt this, Lento? I'd say it was definitely the same composer who wrote the Bach Magnificat.

[Richard Barrett]

What ma(d/k)es you doubt this, Lento? I'd say it was definitely the same composer who wrote the Bach Magnificat.

Plus half of it definitely, and the rest possibly, is arranged from previously written cantatas by Bach (as is a great deal of Bach's Latin church music). I got to know the cantatas before the short Masses so that the latter often sound to me like little "highlights" compilations. As with the Mass in B minor, though, Bach of course had impeccable taste when it came to selecting from his own previous output. And there are always fascinating little changes too.