Volume 24 Issue 6 - March 2019

Beat by Beat | Early Music
Eine Kleine
Bachmusik
Exploring the Master’s Works
MATTHEW WHITFIELD
The Baroque era was a time of international cultural exchange
and groundbreaking creativity. Composers from across Europe
brought music from the last vestiges of Renaissance modality
to the systematic hierarchy of tones and semitones as defined by
functional harmony. If there is
one composer whose name is
synonymous with the Baroque
era and its developments, it is
most likely Johann Sebastian
Bach. Bach was an inherently
paradoxical figure, practical
yet prickly, pious yet prideful,
conservative yet radically
progressive, a musical visionary
with one foot in the past. We
need look no further than the
B-Minor Mass to see Bach’s equal
comfort in the old modal style
and a new, highly chromatic
tonal system, evident in the
contrast between the Credo
fugue, based on cantus-firmus
models of earlier times, and
the comparatively shocking
Crucifixus. The latter is an
extended exploration of semitone
relationships and enharmonic
modulation masquerading as a
ground-bass chaconne, using
harmonic techniques that would
not become frequently and
fluently exercised until almost a
century later.
The reasons for Bach’s
powerful presence in the Western
music canon are too many to
number; the sheer intensity of
his skill has captivated generations
of composers, students
and performers, from Mozart
and Beethoven to Mendelssohn,
Schumann, Brahms and Mahler.
This impact on those who
followed him, coupled with Bach’s ability to blend the cerebral with
the spiritual in a way unsurpassed by his peers or successors, has
led to Bach’s place in the musical cosmos being like a musical black
hole, on a scale perhaps only equalled by Beethoven, dividing all of
musical history into before and after. All that came before led to this
apotheosis of ingenuity; all that comes after is a successor, related in
some way to this progenitor of revolutionized compositional ability.
(A recent online post describing Handel as “a more religious Bach,” a
premier example of musicological perfidy if there ever was one!)
Defence of Bach’s placement among the greats in the pantheon
of musical history, is superfluous and unnecessary. The preceding
paragraphs simply attempt to illustrate just how significant the contributions
of this one composer are. To look at Bach’s music from
another perspective, we can ask ourselves why Glenn Gould’s 1955
recording of the Goldberg Variations is one of the bestselling Classical
albums of all time. (Before this recording, after all, the Goldbergs were
considered museum pieces, old stuck-up essays in variation form
that were unworthy of public performance.) The answer, most likely,
is that, in the hands of someone who truly understands its intricacies
and is able to express them, Bach’s music is the ideal repertoire
to perform, challenging the interpreter and the listener and creating
an atmosphere that borders on the sublime. No two live performances
of the same work are ever identical, but this is all the more so with
Bach, whose music is conducive to elastic and creative interpretations;
a performer can adopt and adapt, making them endlessly subjective –
and thereby communicative – experiences for an audience.
Tafelmusik’s Matthäus-Passion
In case this extended preamble wasn’t a sufficiently obvious
lead-in, March is full of Bach’s music, performed across Southern
Ontario by a variety of ensembles.
On March 21 to 24 in
Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre,
Tafelmusik presents a muchanticipated
performance of the
Matthäus-Passion (St Matthew
Passion), led by Japanese
conductor Masaaki Suzuki.
Suzuki is a Japanese organist,
harpsichordist and conductor,
and the founder and musical
director of the Bach Collegium
Japan, with which he is recording
the complete choral works of
Johann Sebastian Bach. To give a
brief overview of Suzuki’s output
to date, Bach Collegium Japan
completed their 55-volume series
of Bach’s church cantatas in 2013,
the secular cantatas in 2018, as
well as all of Bach’s Lutheran
Masses, motets, and large choral
works. Suzuki is also recording
Bach’s concertos, orchestral
suites and solo works for harpsichord
and organ, as well as
guest conducting with ensembles
around the globe.
The St. Matthew Passion is
a monumental work for vocal
soloists, two choirs, and two
orchestras, and Bach’s largest
single piece of music, running
almost three hours in an average
performance. Containing some
of Bach’s most beautiful and
exquisitely crafted material, the
Bach plays the organ
St Matthew Passion was first
performed on Good Friday 1727
at the St. Thomas Church (Thomaskirche) in Leipzig. One of the challenges
of performing this work involves the distribution of forces
within the performing space; how does one ensure that the division
of the large choir and orchestra into two distinct parts is clear and
apparent, particularly in such essentially antiphonal movements as
the opening “Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen”?
In Bach’s time St. Thomas Church had two organ lofts: the
large organ loft that was used throughout the year for musicians
performing in Sunday services, and the small organ loft, situated at
the opposite side of the sanctuary, that was used additionally in the
grand services for Christmas and Easter. The St. Matthew Passion was
34 | March 2019 thewholenote.com