On Tuesday I got a 1939 edition of Aaron Copland’s wonderful book, What to Listen for in Music. I recently came across Alex Ross’s manifesto from The New Yorker, and while looking up the Bernstein books he recommended, amazon “suggested” I look at Copland’s book. I’m glad I did. Several quotes from the book make me think Ross would recommend it too:
I have often observed that the mark of a real music lover was an imperious desire to become familiar with every manifestation of the art, ancient and modern.
– Aaron Copland. 1939. What to Listen for in Music. p. vii.
This is one of the things I like about reading Ross’s columns; he’s interested in all types of music, even if he typically writes about “modern” classical music (a phrase he certainly wouldn’t like anyone using to describe his columns, but sometimes you’re stuck describing something the way everyone else does). Copland mentions jazz quite a few times, and while rock and roll doesn’t appear in the book, I’ll bet he listened to and appreciated that musical form too.
If all new music sounds continually and unrelievedly dissonant to you, then it is a safe guess that your listening experience is insufficient as regards music of your own time—which is not so strange in the majority of cases, when we realize the small proportion of new music heard by the average listener compared with what he hears of the music of former times.
– Ibid. p. 75.
Something I’ll have to keep in mind in listening to Stockhausen…
The book also features listening suggestions. In the section on musical texture and polyphony, Copland suggests listening to Bach’s Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ (BWV 639 and part of the “Little Organ Book”, Orgelbüchlein). I pulled out and ripped the Complete Bach Edition CD VI-6, which contains this piece. As an example of polyphony, it’s actually the simplest work in the Orgelbüchlein, having only three voices instead of the usual four (or five in the case of BWV 599, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland). Copland suggests listening four times; first listening for the main soprano melody, then isolating the bass line, then the alto melody, and finally trying to hear all the melodies at the same time. Here’s what the first few measures look like:
This will take some more practice. I can get the soprano and the bass melodies pretty easily, but I have a hard time pulling out the alto melody, and hearing them all at the same time.
The second movement of Bach’s Italian Concerto (BWV 971) also comes up in the rhythm section, and in the initial discussion of melody. It’s on the Complete Bach Edition CD II-10. There’s no score for it at the MutopiaProject, but it is easy enough to hear what Copland is talking about. Bach simulates the contrasting instruments that are normally part of a concerto by playing the two different manuals (forte and piano) of a harpsichord against each other.
In the section on musical forms, Copland cites the classic passacaglia variation form, Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor (BWV 582). CD VI-10 in my box set, so I ripped it and listened to that one too. A passacaglia has a repeated bass melody, but each time it repeats, it’s a bit different. Bach takes this to extremes by the end of this version, but because it starts slowly and the variations change incrementally, it is really easy to pick up the melody as it repeats, even when it moves completely off the bass line. If you’ve got a copy of it, listen carefully, following along with the music below (don’t worry, I can’t read music either…).
Bach comes up again in the chapter on free forms since Bach wrote so many preludes (the free form) and fugues. The example cited is the B flat major Prelude from Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I (BWV 866). It’s on CD II-2. Listening to the prelude part, and then the fugue part of the same work is instructive. The prelude moves forward, the long line meandering around, but there’s nothing obvious (melody, rhythm, etc.) tying it together. When the fugue comes around, you can hear the contrapuntal melodies traveling around each other in a way you don’t hear in the prelude.
There’s a lot to listen to, and a lot of listening to do, but I’m beginning to feel like I have a few more of the tools needed to really understand what’s going on in the music.
The last paragraph in the book reads,
Music can only be really alive when there are listeners who are really alive. To listen intently, to listen consciously, to listen with one’s whole intelligence is the least we can do in the furtherance of an art that is one of the glories of mankind.
- Listen and blog my growing interest in classical music, especially Bach’s cantatas.
- Design and build a bunch of furniture for our new house. Side tables, a window seat, bathroom cabinet and storage under the stairs are on the current list.
- Collect enough firewood this spring to make it through next winter.
- Keep up with my reading, including reading what’s published of the Oxford History of the United States.
- Try to make as much of my food as I can from unprocessed, local sources.
I’ve been taking a break from Bach for the past week, listening to some modern stuff recommended by various blogs and lists on eMusic. It’s quite a change from baroque music, and requires a whole different manner of interpretation and listening. Pieces include Karlitz Stockhausen’s Gruppen (DG), some flute concertos by Kalevi Aho, Haukur Tómasson and Christian Lindberg (BIS / eMusic), Symphonies 1 and 4 by Jean Sibelius (really more romantic than modern, I guess) (BIS / eMusic), Turangalîla-Symphonie by Oliver Messiaen (Naxos / eMusic) and James MacMillan’s Triduum (BIS / eMusic).
I don’t have much to say about them, really, since I don’t feel like I completely understood what I was listening to. The Sibelius symphonies are fantastic, and I certainly enjoyed parts of the others, but in all the music I was struck by how disjointed they all seemed. Part of my problem, at least with Messiaen’s symphony is that the work has a very carefully designed structure with three themes (statue, flower, love) and ten movements connected by these themes, but as much as I tried, I couldn’t easily pick up these themes, and so I didn’t see the pattern. The Wikipedia entry even includes some music notation to help an educated reader pick up the melody of the themes, but I no longer remember how to read music.
I think this is sort of like reading Thomas Pynchon. If you don’t pay attention and read carefully, the whole thing will seem completely incoherent. But if you look up the references, write down the characters, and really study what’s going on, his books are masterful in ways that most other writers don’t approach. My problem with musical analogues to this kind of brilliance is that I’m a much more accomplished reader than musical listener. I lack the basic tools to even know what I should be listening for. But as Pynchon (and Joyce before him) have demonstrated to me, it’s worth the effort when you’re ready.
I’d never even heard of a cantata before getting the set of Bach CDs, but if one is to believe the following quote, they’re a very important part of Bach’s music:
Bach’s greatest achievement is the Cantata Project, the five annual cycles which he began when he came to Leipzig and finished five years later. Because of losses in manuscripts and only the barest suggestion of the overriding design, we are probably doomed to see this monument as a series of individual works rather than a mighty collection of 300 parts with hundreds of movements.
Douglas Cowling, 2007-May-06, Bach Cantatas mailing list
I’m starting my cantata listening with the three works written for the first week in Advent, which was last Sunday, and happens to be the beginning of the church year. I doubt if I’ll be able to listen to all of Bach’s cantatas in order, but I’ve listed the upcoming dates for all the cantatas, the place of all of Bach’s works on the Bach Edition CDs, as well as my progress listening to them on this page.
Here, I’m listening to cantata 61 from CD III-1, cantata 62 from III-28, and cantata 36 from IV-5. They’re all conducted by Pieter Jan Leusink and the Netherlands Bach Collegium with the Holland Boys Choir. Soloists include Ruth Holton (soprano), Sytse Buwalda (alto), Nico van der Meel (tenor) and Bas Ramselaar (bass). In reading reviews of Leusink’s complete cycle, many commentators seem to specifically dislike Buwalda, and complain that Leusink’s interpretations aren’t very considered. Leusink recorded the entire set of Bach’s cantatas in a single year, and the reviews usually mention this as a possible reason for why his cycle isn’t as polished and “correct” as other cycles. I haven’t been listening to cantatas long enough to really know if these complaints are valid or not.
I also downloaded Philippe Herreweghe’s Adventskantaten CD from eMusic. It’s got the same three cantatas on it, and Herreweghe’s cantata recordings are highly regarded by the same people who aren’t all that fond of Leusink, so it should be a good comparison.
I’m using several references to guide my listening. First, and foremost is the Bach Cantatas website. They’ve got commentary culled from the mailing list of the same name for all the cantatas and many of Bach’s other works. For a mailing list, there’s an amazing diversity of very expert opinion on all aspects of Bach’s music. Second is Simon Crouch’s Listening Guide to Bach’s Cantatas, which provides a short summary of all the cantatas and his opinions on them. Finally, I borrowed a copy of W. Gillies Whittaker’s two volume The Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach from the library. It’s out of print, but is available from used booksellers for a reasonable price. It’s a pretty detailed look at each cantata, but it suffers a bit because it doesn’t reflect recent scholarship regarding Bach. Alfred Dürr’s The Cantatas of J.S. Bach is apparently the best source of contemporary information, and it includes parallel German / English translations for all the cantatas, but none of the local libraries have a copy, and a new paperback is more than $70 from amazon.com. Sight unseen, that’s an awfully expensive book, but if I really get into the cantatas, maybe it’ll be worth it.
I’ve listened to these three cantatas more than 30 times in the last week and a half, so it’s time to write about them and move on to something else.
Cantata BWV 61, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (Come thou blessed Savior, come)
This cantata was first performed December 2, 1714 in Weimar. Bach held the title of concertmeister at the time, and was formally required to compose new church music once a month. This cantata is also known to have been performed November 28, 1723 in Leipzig .
The first movement starts with a great chorus, with violins and other stringed instruments playing the melody from Martin Luther’s hymn, which names the piece. It’s a great introduction to the work, and for me, to the cantata form.
Next is a recitative sung by the tenor backed by a violin and organ, followed by an aria that’s also sung by the tenor. According to the Wikipedia, the difference between a recitative and an aria is how speech-like the rhythm of the vocal accompaniment is, and I guess in that context the tenor is really singing the third movement in time with the melody, rather than speaking over it as he does in the second movement. It’s cool to have one follow the other with the same singer so I can hear the difference between them.
The fourth movement is another recitative, but this time the strings are plucked (pizzicato). The passage being sung comes from Revelations 3:20: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock.” and the plucked strings is meant to evoke the sound of Jesus knocking. It sounds a bit like a foolish compositional trick, but it really does work, especially at the point in the music. I’ve always disliked Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring because of the clopping sounds meant to evoke the sound of horses, but I don’t mind Bach’s use of pizzicato here.
The work concludes with a beautiful soprano aria and an absolutely fantastic chorale. I like the last movement best; it’s really joyful. Unfortunately, it’s also really short, and to me, seems to end the cantata prematurely.
As far as the two different recordings I have (Leusink and Herreweghe), the timing differs between the two works, but the instrumentation, singing and expressiveness of the piece are very similar between the two. I really can’t complain about either, and I don’t know if I would even be able to recommend one over the other. This surprises me a little bit because most of the commentary I’ve read about Leusink and the singers have placed his versions near the bottom of the available choices. Not so in my ears!
Cantata BWV 62, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (Come thou blessed Savior, come)
Cantata 62 was first performed on December 3, 1724 in Leipzig as part of Bach’s second annual cycle of cantatas. He wrote five complete cycles during his first years as capellmeister at the St. Thomas School (an incredible output given all the performances, practice and other labors he was required to do in addition to essentially composing a new work each week), but unfortunately most of the last two cycles have been lost.
This cantata is based on the same hymn as 61 and has a similar structure of a chorus, an alternating series of arias and recitatives, and a final chorus. Compared to 61, I like the opening chorus even more because it seems like the instrumental part has more of a chance to develop before the chorus comes in, making it that much more dramatic. There’s also a lot of counterpoint among the singers that I like.
Next we’ve got a tenor aria, bass recitative, and bass aria. Only the bass aria is interesting because of the strong instrumentation. For this movement, I do prefer Herreweghe’s version over Leusink because it’s very forcefully played and sung. Leusink seems to drag it out and it loses a lot of it’s power.
The final recitative before the closing chorus is a duet for the soprano and alto singers, which makes it different from the movements thus far. The chorus for this cantata is even shorter than the chorus of cantata 61, but it’s also not as good. The best part of this cantata is the opening chorus, by a long shot.
I like Herreweghe’s version quite a bit more for this cantata, mostly due to the quickened pacing which makes it brighter and more urgent sounding. The opening chorus and the bass aria really benefit from the faster timing.
Cantata BWV 36, Schwingt freudig euch empor (Swing joyfully yourselves on high)
This sacred version of cantata 36 comes from Bach’s reworking of several secular cantatas (versions 36b and 36c still exist) and was first performed December 2, 1731.
Here we have a completely different pattern, with an opening chorus, followed by alternating chorales and arias. Like the other Advent cantatas (maybe cantatas in general?) it ends with a chorale. There are no recitatives here, which is apparently unusual, but for me is a welcome change.
The opening chorus has a lot of the counterpoint I like from the opening of cantata 61, but here the instrumentation features woodwinds (Oboe d’amore) rather than strings carrying the melody. The rest of the cantata carries along similarly to the chorus, with a variety of duets, arias and chorales and more woodwind accompaniment. The melody is very simple and is easy to pick out throughout the work.
I like the soprano aria in the seventh movement not so much because of the singing, but because the voice and the featured violin (violone?) complement each other very well.
Similar to cantata 62, Leusink is slower and more leisurely than Herreweghe. That works well for the soprano aria, but not so well for the opening chorus. I also like Leusink’s soprano (Ruth Horton) more than Sibylla Rubens. Horton sings more gracefully and emotionally, while Rubens really belts it out like an opera singer. I think the aria needs a lighter touch. Anyway, it’s a mixed bag here and I can’t outright recommend one version over the other. And in general, I don’t think you can go wrong with either recording. The music is too good.
Along with listening to all of Bach’s extant music via the Bach Edition I wanted to learn more about the man, and hopefully understand the music a little bit better. Johann Sebastian Bach was born in 1685 to a musical family in Eisenach. By the time he was eighteen he was a respected organologist and received appointments as church organist first in Arnstadt (in 1703) and then in Mühlhausen (1707). In 1708 he was appointed organist and chamber musician in Weimar, and later became concertmaster there. His next position was in Cöthen from 1717 to 1723 where he served as capellmeister. His final position was as cantor at St. Thomas School in Leipzig where he remained until his death in 1750. Along the way he was married twice (his first wife died in 1720) and had twenty children, ten of whom survived into adulthood.
Christoph Wolff’s biography is a very good scholarly introduction to what we know about Johann Sebastian Bach. Wolff is a well respected Bach expert, directing the Bach-Archiv in Leipzig and author and editor of many other Bach publications. This expertise really comes through in the book, which is filled with scholarly discussion and excerpts from what little remains from Bach’s life. Because most of Bach’s letters, writings and music are gone, a biography of Bach is more like a series of reasoned hypotheses that can never be fully rejected. Wolff does an excellent job leading us through these arguments.
I was most surprised by how much of Bach’s life is simply unknowable because so much of what he wrote, both musically and personally, has been lost. He wrote five complete cantata cycles during his first years in Leipzig, but almost all of the final two series are lost. And the lack of personal writings means that we know almost nothing about how Bach lived his life day to day, or what he thought about his music. Wolff writes in his introduction:
Bach’s biography suffers from a serious lack of information on details, many of them crucial… Indeed, it would not be difficult to devote entire chapters to what it not known about Bach’s life. Thus, conjectures and assumptions are unavoidable, and this book necessarily calls for numerous occurrences of “probably,” “perhaps,” “maybe,” and the like. Yet, as I try to demonstrate in these pages, it is not impossible to reveal, even in the case of Bach, the essence of a life.
He goes on to say that what we do know about him comes to us in the form of his music, music which Bach used to explore the boundaries of what was known about musical science at that time. Although I lack the musical training to understand what was so revolutionary about Bach’s explorations (for example, writing about The Well-Tempered Clavier, Wolff writes “In demonstrating that the tonal system could be expanded to twenty-four keys not just theoretically but practically, Bach set a milestone in the history of music whose overall implications for chromatic harmony would take another century to be fully realized.”), Wolff’s analyses of Bach’s music in the book only increases my appreciation for Bach’s music.