JSB sacred cantatas: which are your favourites, and why?

[Vox Humana]

...I think the sense was, "Bachmaninov just doesn't sound "right" for this Music...."

There's no doubt that the Watts/Dart performance is completely anachronistic, but I'd like to hear a HIP performance in the region of quaver = 69-72 (as opposed to Watt's 66).

[ardcarp]

I just find it difficult to believe that Bach would have produced all the tellingly wonderful harmonic and contrapuntal effects he did if he expected them to be thrown away in a helter-skelter of speed. Light and airy is all the rage today, but nothing in my reading of Bach's character leads me to believe that he was a light, airy and superficial man.

Try telling that to the Hipsters! It's not based on sound research. But I agree with you, common sense would suggest a certain German Protestant Profundity. Interestingly there was a brief snippet on R4's Today programme a few days ago (can you believe it) where the increasing speeds of Baroque music were discussed. They even read out a tweet from Chris Morley, music critic of the Birmingham Post...and you can't have better authority than that.... agreeing with our point of view.

[Vox Humana]

Interestingly there was a brief snippet on R4's Today programme a few days ago (can you believe it) where the increasing speeds of Baroque music were discussed.

Yes, I heard that. It had me shouting at the radio!

[Richard Barrett]

common sense would suggest a certain German Protestant Profundity

... although common sense would also suggest that such profundity might well not have suggested slower tempi in the 18th century as it did in the 20th. There's not much that can be said authoritatively about exact tempi in Bach's era, by Mr Morley or anyone else; the faster tempi that tend to characterise recenter performances of Baroque music are a 21st century phenomenon just as the slower (to my mind rather ponderous) ones were a 20th century phenomenon. It's not so much a question of one being more "authentic" than the other, but of preferences changing over time (or not!).

[Bryn]

Grist to some mill or other, or there's this.

[ardcarp]

It's not so much a question of one being more "authentic" than the other, but of preferences changing over time (or not!).

Yes indeed. And the word 'fashion' is lingering there somewhere. To my pre-teen ears, the slow movement of Bach's Concerto for 2 violins in the hands of Oistrakh/Menuhin was paradise.

But this is pretty darn good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzUdwPqB3hs

(Podger and Blumenstock)

[Vox Humana]

Grist to some mill or other, or there's this.

And this: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/ppr/vol17/iss1/4/

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

...I think the sense was, "Bachmaninov just doesn't sound "right" for this Music...."

(with the "for me", of course).

... o yes. Sorry, ferney, my too-cursory read of your carefully-constructed sentence.

No need for the apology - it was rather a "stream-of-consciousness-ly" written sentence, and I can quite see now how it could have been read in the way that you did.

[Pulcinella]

Looking through the list of cantatas 'according to the church year' both on the cantata website and in the book accompanying the Das Alte Werk set, Cantata 140 is ascribed to the 27th Sunday after Trinity, an occasion that happens relatively infrequently. I have posted a question on the 'Stir-up Sunday' thread, wondering if it traditionally gets 'bumped' to the Sunday next before Advent, but there is a slightly broader (and possibly naive) question I have as a result of looking at the list. Most Sundays have two cantatas against them, and some have three or four (indeed some only have one). Can we infer from this anything about when they were written and why new/replacement ones were written for some Sundays and not for others? Probably not important, but it struck me as a little odd. I hope I've expressed myself clearly enough!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Bach was employed with the understanding that he would write new Cantatas for each Sunday, every year - a requirement he seems to have adhered to for three or four years (there are several Cantatas missing - presumably used to wrap cheeses).

(IIRC, some Sundays also required two shorter Cantatas, performed on either side of the Sermon - but this is a vague memory: I'd need to consult - trans: "find" - my books to verify if I remember correctly.)

[Richard Barrett]

Bach was employed with the understanding that he would write new Cantatas for each Sunday, every year - a requirement he seems to have adhered to for three or four years

Only the first two years are more or less complete though; subsequently (IIRC) he would fill in the gaps with earlier ones, or music by other composers.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Only the first two years are more or less complete though; subsequently (IIRC) he would fill in the gaps with earlier ones, or music by other composers.

I presume so - but I thought (read "presumed") that the missing/lost Cantatas suggested that he continued working to the requirement longer than the first couple of years?

[Richard Barrett]

I presume so - but I thought (read "presumed") that the missing/lost Cantatas suggested that he continued working to the requirement longer than the first couple of years?

I think both of us should consult our extensive libraries, but to continue the presumptions for now, I don't think any of the cycles from the third to the fifth was even completed by JSB, even if some scores were used to wrap fish and chips. It beggars my imagination how he kept it up for even two years!

[ardcarp]

Not surprised he developed eye problems...which didn't turn out well.

[Vox Humana]

Not surprised he developed eye problems...which didn't turn out well.

Diabetic retinopathy? He was rather overweight. All that beer and wine...