 |
| Maestro Paul Goodwin © Yoel Levy |
Inclement
weather was no deterrent to those people arriving at the Jerusalem
International YMCA on March 18th 2024 to see in Bach Festival VIII, an annual
festival under the auspices of the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra and directed by
JBO founder and music director Prof. David Shemer. Guests were greeted with a
glass of red wine and invited to take their seats to the familiar sounds of
Prelude in C major from Book 1 of J.S.Bach's Well Tempered Clavier as played on
the harpsichord by Jonathan Berk. JBO CEO Gilli Alon welcomed guests to the
event, expressing her thanks to YMCA personnel for their help in the project.
Her words were followed by Maestro Shemer, who talked of the Bach Festival as
having started out as an experiment, then to be established as a permanent fixture
in Israel's cultural life. He spoke of the main event of this year's festival -
"Drums & Trumpets" - the Secular Cantatas - as featuring two of
Bach's less-familiar cantatas, the works being played on period
instruments…including early trumpets. Shemer made reference to the JBO's
ongoing cooperation with the Bach House (Eisenach, Germany), whose director Dr. Jörg Hansen was present at the opening, once
again bringing an exhibition relevant to the theme of the festival from this
unique museum in the town of Bach's birth. Present at the Jerusalem Bach
Festival for the seventh time, Dr. Hansen spoke of many of Bach's secular
cantatas - all composed for weddings, birthdays, name days and funerals – being
lost, with only about 25 of them surviving in their entirety. Hansen drew our
attention to a display case showing books of poetry of Picander. (Christian
Friedrich Henrici, writing under the pen name Picander, was a poet and
librettist for many of the cantatas Johann Sebastian Bach composed in
Leipzig.) Performing on a copy of a Duicken harpsichord (Klop, 1983),
Jonathan Berk brought the event to a close with a selection of Bach's chorale
preludes (one version by Bach's pupil Johann Ludwig Krebs) and an early
seldom-heard suite of the master. Berk is presently studying in Graz, Austria.
Displaying technical competence, his playing unfolded with a sense of discovery,
giving expression to the rich variety of writing found in the preludes, to
their complexity and their potential for embellishment and cantabile playing.
Both reflective and intense, Berk's delivery attested to the dialogue present
between artist and instrument that is elemental to this repertoire.
What was most appealing about "Drums
& Trumpets" - the Secular Cantatas, the
main event of this Bach Festival (attended by this writer on March 20th at the
Jerusalem International YMCA) was its distinctive programming. For each of the
main festival programs over the years, the Jerusalem Bach Festival has featured
several of the larger sacred works - the St. Matthew Passion, the St. John
Passion, the Magnificat, to mention just three - but this year's festival
presented two of Bach's secular cantatas. Guest conductor was Paul Goodwin
(UK), with soloists soprano Keren Motseri (Holland/Israel), countertenor Hamish
McLarin (UK), tenor Richard Resch (Germany) and Israeli baritone Guy Pelc.
However, the "apéritif" to the cantatas was a feature no less
invigorating - a selection of instrumental movements from Bach's Easter
Oratorio and from three of the cantatas. With Paul Goodwin at the helm, the JBO
instrumentalists gave fresh and vivid expression to these pieces, delighting
the audience with the music’s variety of mood and timbral interest, the latter
enriched and enlivened by fine wind playing. As to the two cantatas, we
unexpectedly found ourselves hearing music familiar to us from other Bach
works. Bach the recycler was at it again. "Tönet, ihr Pauken! Erschallet,
Trompeten!" (Resound, ye drums! Ring out, ye trumpets!) BWV 214 (Bach
reused parts of this cantata a year later for the first- and third cantata of
the Christmas Oratorio) was composed in 1733 for the birthday of Maria Josepha,
Queen of Poland and Electress of Saxony. Bach had led the Collegium Musicum in
the first performance of it at Café Zimmermann in Leipzig
that same year. The librettist is unknown. The text's interaction occurs
between four allegorical goddesses from Roman- and Greek mythology: Bellona, a
Roman goddess of war (Keren Motseri), Pallas, a Greek goddess of wisdom (Hamish
McLarin), Irene, a Greek goddess of peace (Richard Resch), and Fama, a
Roman goddess of fame (Guy Pelc). Joining them to sing the choruses were Naomi
Burla-Levy, Doreen Sassine, Jamil Freij and Roi Witz. Although we today would
not recognize the allusions and metaphors referring to the latent political
program of the piece (indeed, obscure to anyone but its Saxon audience of
1733), the Bach Festival performance (both soloists and instrumentalists) gave
a polished reading of it, bringing to life the musical gestures and verbal
descriptions embedded in the text of this dramma per musica.
Apart from the recitatives, "Auf, schmetternde
Töne der muntern Trompeten" BWV 207a (Arise, blaring tones of
high-spirited trumpets) is a parody on BWV 207, meaning that the original
setting - a celebration of the inaugural lecture of a professor of law - was
transformed by Bach into an exalted ode to Friedrich August II, praising the
virtues of the Elector and referring to the ensuing prosperity of his subjects
on the occasion of Friedrich August’s name day. The trumpets and timpani,
scored here to add festive colour, energy and joy to the work, are present from
the first line and the listener was quick to recognise Brandenburg Concerto
No.1 in the opening chorus. With the customary references to ancient antiquity,
August is honoured mainly in his capacity as Elector of Saxony, although reference
is also made to his Polish kingdom in the final recitative. The performance's
fine vocal soloing was met with no-less splendid obbligato playing on the part
of JBO players.
Bach Festival VIII concluded with "Whom Have I
in Heaven but You", an evening of northern German Baroque music, music of
composers who had paved the way for Johann Sebastian Bach. Taking place in the
agreeable Conference Hall of the Jerusalem YMCA on March 23rd, the event
featured tenor Richard Resch (no new face to Israeli concert audiences),
violinists Noam Schuss and Yulia Lurye, Sonia Navot (viola da gamba) and David
Shemer (organ). Resch referred to this repertoire as music full of feelings -
some darker, some brighter in mood - works expressing sadness, faith and hope.
The event opened with a full-bodied, sonorous reading of "Herr, wenn ich nur Dich habe" (Whom have I in
heaven but You?) from Cantata BuxWV38 of Dietrich Buxtehude. Resch spoke of the
aria "Wein, ach wein" (Cry, oh cry), from a Passion by Danish-German
organist/violinist/ composer Nicolaus Bruhns, as a piece expressing Peter's
disconsolateness at having betrayed Jesus, as a piece embodying the
"quintessence of sorrow". Joined by Shemer and Schuss, Resch
performed it with profound feeling. Endorsing and reflecting the intense grief intrinsic
to the piece, Schuss' eloquent playing gave rise to some splendid ornamenting. Johann Mattheson's oratorio "Der liebreiche
und geduldige David" (The affectionate and patient David,1723) was
recently rediscovered amongst works lost during World War II (now restored to
Hamburg.) It is set during the elderly King David’s civil war with his
estranged son Absalom and climaxes with the king’s lament for his dead son.
With organ and viol offering an intimate, reflective setting for the lament,
Resch's performance of “Ach Absalom! Mein Sohn” (Oh Absalom! My son!), with its
searching, disquieting short pauses, was imposing and heartrending.
As to the instrumental items on the program, the
players' diligent reading of two sonatas from Johann Heinrich Schmelzer's
"Duodena Selectarum Sonatarum" (Nürnberg, 1659) re-created something of the experience offered to guests at
a typical evening of entertainment held at the Habsburg Court. In this, the
composer's first large chamber music collection, the viola da gamba is on a par
with the violin. From the early 17th century, the Viennese court was under the
spell of the Italian style. The Schmelzer sonatas show a wide variety of
influences, though the Italian influence is the most apparent. They reflect an
age of experimentation and compositional freedom. Similarly, the JBO players'
expressive and finely sculpted playing of Sonata Secunda from "Sonatae a
2, 3, 4 e 5 stromenti da arco et altri" (Nürnberg, 1682) of Johann Rosenmüller clearly shows the influence
of the years the composer spent in Venice.
Ending on an optimistic note, the artists performed
"Redet Untereinander" (Speak among Yourselves), a typical early 18th
century North German cantata, composed by Gottfried Philipp Flor. It
is thought that J.S.Bach was acquainted with compositions of his father,
Christian Flor, during his stay as a student in Lüneburg and may have been
influenced by them. Some sources quote Bach as having known the elder Flor
personally. The artists took on board the vivid, celebratory canvas of this new
year cantata, highlighting its marvellous string writing. Resch gave articulate,
vigorous esprit to the text, with its richly descriptive passages.
The
YMCA Conference Hall was the ideal venue for this unique program, its lively
acoustic calling attention to the timbres of the instruments, the instrumentalists’
splendid playing and to the fresh, warm, easeful flow, the natural resonance of
Richard Resch's singing and his deep enquiry into the texts.
 |
| Richard Resch (Martin Lee) |
