What a fantastic performance – I am so proud of all of the NVC singers. We had a wonderful audience (full house!) who were with us from beginning to end. There is a place for this music in our world.
On to Rossini (with perhaps some Brahms quartet music thrown in -?). And we’re thinking about next season – SO fun to go through my bucket list!
I was emailing a colleague a few weeks back about today’s performance and he replied immediately, “Day-um gurl!!! B minor mass!!! Lucky you!! Any time I rehearse Bach, I think….why bother with anything else. You can spend hours on 8 bars and never get bored.” And that does sum up neatly why musicians love this work. Bach is the ultimate mind-stretcher: the singers of the Chorale and I have learned to sing bushels of small black notes over and over until they magically formed into comprehensible patterns; we have been bowled over by beautiful harmonies but unable at first to duplicate them; we have been jolted by moving abruptly from a stile antico fugue to an expressive movement to a wildly exuberant dancing fugue (i.e., the “Gratias”, the “Qui tollis” and the “Cum Sancto Spiritu”). And though we have mastered much of the work, we have not tired of it. We will miss rehearsing it.
Bach did not expect to hear the Mass performed in its entirety – there would have been no opportunity, no service that would have accommodated a two hour work which has elements of both the Catholic and the Lutheran masses. “In the late years of his life when it came time for summing up, Bach set to work on his sacred magnum opus. His labors on the composition we know as the B minor Mass were spread over many years (the title is a nineteenth-century invention; Bach himself never gave the work a single, collective designation). The Mass is in many respects an anthology, a retrospective of a lifetime’s work not unlike other of the kunstbücher , or “books of art” (such as The Art of Fugue ), he assembled during the 1730s and 1740s. As such, it is not the product of one inspired moment, or of any one particular period of the composer’s life, but truly an encyclopedic fusion of every possible Baroque compositional style and form, embodying the very essence of the Baroque art.” (Justin Flossi)
The two first movements, the Kyrie and the Gloria, make up the Lutheran Mass of Bach’s time (another term for this is Missa brevis). The Missa was composed in 1733 as a gift to Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Dresden, who Bach was soliciting for the title of court composer. This very long Missa was performed in Dresden, and there are surviving orchestra parts from the performance, giving generations of musicologists lots to argue about.
Here are just a few things to listen for during the Kyrie:
• The highly expressive nature of the opening Kyrie (“Lord have mercy”), with the dominant musical cell of a sighing half step countered by an affecting upward leap of a sixth. This is a complex movement with, fortunately, a distinctive subject, heard first in the oboes and then throughout the movement in all of the voice parts. The final section of the fugue begins with the basses singing the theme in B minor and the other voice parts (tenor, alto, soprano 1, soprano 2) following; Helmuth Rilling has described this as “pleading for mercy from the depths.”
• The Christe (“Christ have mercy”), which one would think would still be somewhat morose, is lively and rhythmic, with a repeating violin figure throughout. “Addressing the Second Person of the Trinity by two voices is one of the numerous musical symbols to be found throughout the Mass.” (Peter Berquist)
• The next Kyrie is a stile antico piece, meaning it is in the old Renaissance motet style of composition, as in the works of Palestrina. It is again a fugue, in F# minor. Listen for the wonderful syncopated entrances of “Kyrie” in the final section.
The Kyrie is complex, inward, concentrated. The Gloria is a whole different beast – it carries one along, gasping at Bach’s ingenuity in changing styles and at his masterful orchestration. Here are some highlights:
• The opening “Gloria in excelsis” is reminiscent of the Brandenburg Concerti and gives us our first dancing jig in the work. It is connected with a pastoral fugue (“Et in terra pax”).
• The completely Baroque-styled “Laudamus te” is followed with another stile antico fugue (“Gratias agimus tibi”) – the music was originally from Bach’s cantata 29 from 1731, and you will hear it again at the end of the Mass.
• “The duet “Domine Deus” and aria “Qui sedes” frame the chorus “Qui tollis,” the central portion of the text for Bach, in which Jesus Christ is asked for forgiveness.” (Peter Berquist)
• The bass soloist then gets the most-oddly scored work: two bassoons and a French horn. Absolutely luscious. The movement ends with the brilliant “Cum Sancto Spiritu” – listen for the different families of instruments (woodwinds, strings, brass) and then comes the fantastic and highly decorated fugue.
After intermission we come to the central movement of every Mass, the Credo, or as Bach titled it, the Symbolum Nicenum (the Nicene creed). At its heart are the fundamental tenets of Christian faith, Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Here is the structure:
“Credo in unum Deum” – a stile antico fugue stating belief with an old chant tune
“Patrem omnipotentem” – the Baroque orchestra joins the chorus
“Et in unum Dominum” – in this duet, listen for the imitation in the oboes, violins, and voices, denoting the Father and the Son
“Et incarnatus est” – you will hear the sigh motive in the violins. Listen for the rising alto line at “et homo factus est”, which is an inversion of the bass line in the next section.
“Crucifixus” – this chorus with its lamenting bass was first composed in 1714 and revised for the Mass.
“Et resurrexit” – another concerted piece with full orchestra and chorus
“Et in Spiritum sanctum” – a bass solo with two oboi d’amore
“Confiteor” – a stile antico fugue. You will hear the cantus firmus throughout, sometimes in canon and in the final section sung by the tenors in augmentation (longer note values).
“Et expecto” – probably the most amazing movement in the entire work.
The Sanctus, composed in 1724, is a majestic 6-voice setting of angels, followed by the “Pleni sunt coeli”, one of the pieces I refer to as a ‘washing machine movement.’ The text derives from Isaiah 6:
In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
2 Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
3 And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
4 And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. These two sections stand in contrast to each other: the stately, gently floating angels followed by a sort of manically joyful fugue that never seems to stop until it propels us wonderfully to its end.
The Osanna continues in the “unrelenting joy” mode, with the orchestra punctuating the choir’s statements in a very cool way. This is followed by the tenor’s spare, sweet Benedictus, so we go from absolutely everyone on stage playing together to four people.
After one more pass at the Osanna, the mezzo-soprano sings the Agnus Dei, reworked by Bach from his Ascension Oratorio (BWV 11, which was itself a parody of from a work from 1725). It is a beautiful and affecting prayer. The choir and orchestra then conclude the Mass with the Dona nobis pacem, sung to the same music as the “Gratias agimus tibi”. For us it feels exactly right to come back to this beautifully-crafted fugue at the end of our performance, and it also encapsulates what we have heard from Bach throughout: his re-cycling of earlier works, his reverence for the Renaissance motet style, and his beautiful use of the Baroque festival orchestra.
“The universal spirit of Bach which manifests itself in the B-Minor Mass produces… the paradox that one of the most Christian works in all of sacred music transcends and dissolves its confessional limits, serving instead the whole of humanity – non-Christians included.
“It may seem odd at first glance that as a Buddhist I have theologically come to terms with one of the most Christian works of European music history, Bach’s B-Minor Mass. The conciliatory spirit which manifests itself in this work nevertheless encouraged me to do so.”
-Yoshitake Kobayashi, Bach scholar (1987)
I find the rehearsal process to be always fascinating, occasionally frustrating, and incredibly rewarding. In a choir, we all learn together, and in these three months, all of us have become better musicians together. This was evident at our Messiah Sing a few weeks back. Handelian runs that we had found difficult in Dec 2012 were navigated with a new degree of assurance. The final “Amen” chorus rolled along comfortably. In other words, we have learned to navigate melismatic passages without flipping out, and we have learned how a fugue works. These are major accomplishments and you are, I hope, proud of yourselves.
But what I love the most in this process is the community we are building – each week we all meet in the Baptist sanctuary to sing, joke, laugh and tear our hair out together. We have made amazing progress precisely because we have been the same group each week, taking the harmonies, rhythms, articulations and dynamics apart and putting them back together. Even though we have singers who read music and who are experienced paired with less-experienced singers (several of whom don’t read music), we have all encountered the same trials and joys in the Mass. Bach is a democratically difficult composer – and equally rewarding to all of us as we really get cooking.
This continuity results in an ensemble that can take ownership of a piece. I am learning how you as a group work – when to push ahead, when to take it down a notch, when to drill, when to laugh, etc. Many of you know exactly what I’m going to say before I stop you, and very often help me by pointing out mark I’ve forgotten, or by reminding the group how a phrase should be articulated. This knowing of each other makes each rehearsal not only enjoyable, but, dare I say, a profound use of our time. And we will make better music together on February 9th because of the personal connections we have made. So thank you for your devoted attendance at rehearsal and for all of the work you have put in outside of rehearsal.
I will see some of you on December 23 and all of you on January 6. We will have then a glorious month of working on diction, improving our tone and refining articulation and phrasing. I am looking forward to it. Have a healthy and relaxing holiday!
At the moment my home and work lives have converged, in a less than ideal way. My computer has died, our kitchen faucet is somewhat problematic , we have other miscellaneous plumbing issues, and our washing machine doesn’t really spin effectively. Yet even in a week in which I have a rehearsal every night, much of this is getting fixed (plumber on Wednesday!). And the Chorale is beginning to spin more effectively as well. Last week the Pleni sunt coeli was respectably sung and (dare I say it?) fun. Tonight we are tackling the other “washing machine” sections: the Osanna, Et resurrexit, Et expecto, and the Cum Sancto.
I call them that because of the constant, unending melismatic figuration, which usually has some combination of stepwise motion, neighbor tones and some skips; e.g., the alto at m. 15-18 of the Osanna. I find it helpful to bracket the measures that are sequential – i.e., the same pattern at different pitch levels. For example, I bracket mm21 and 23 of the tenor part (of course, 22 and 24 are the same pattern, so perhaps I’d remind myself of that with a different symbol). This helps me know where I am in the whirling madness.
This is all one way of saying that it is extremely important to mark your music, with either my system, or the suggestions on the Choir Handbook Markings page, or whatever you’ve come up with over the years. We are beginning to delve more deeply into the articulation and phrasing of the Mass, and it is important to preserve that work from week to week.
The conductor John Eliot Gardiner has written a book about Bach, Music in the Castle of Heaven.
Here is Gardiner talking about the “Et expecto” in an interview with Tom Huizenga:
TH: you mention in the book that you were “keeping a weather eye out for the instances in performance when his personality seems to rise through the fabric of his notation.” And I’m wondering if there are specific examples you have in mind, where Bach the man, whom we seem to know so little about, rises up through the music.
JEG: There are quite a few instances in the cantatas but they’re not that well known. I can give you one instance in a piece that is very, very well known and that’s the B Minor Mass, where I think that really applies. In the credo there is this monumental chorus, “Confiteor unum baptisma” — I believe in the universal baptism and the resurrection of the dead. And Bach starts off in really good, solid Lutheran card-carrying fashion by inserting a cantus firmus, a sort of almost plainsong statement, in the basses followed in stretto with the altos and then with the tenors. And you think, “Oh, this is a really major ex cathedra statement” — and so it is until the point when the music seems to crumble and it just simply dwindles and the tempo slows down.
These great girder-like proclamations cease and the music enters into a sort of twilight zone full of dark modulations. And a searching quality enters in the music to the point where you don’t know which direction it’s going to move in. There are extreme insecurities of harmonic movement and it feels at that moment that Bach himself is saying to himself and allowing us to share his momentary doubts as to whether there is going to be a life beyond our earthly existence.
And only at the last moment is there a scalar descent in the bass line and suddenly there is this eruptive chorus with trumpets and drums, “And I look for the resurrection of the dead” — Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum. And suddenly, there’s a sprint to the line and it finishes in a flourish and that’s it. The impressiveness of that jubilant chorus, which is so affirmative, would I think be a lot less if it hadn’t been for the transitional patch of murky self-doubt that comes before it, and I think that’s something that humanizes Bach the man to us. It makes us feel that he, too, had his doubts and had his wobbles.
I imagine many of you have been watching the Oregon Bach Festival Discovery videos where the conductor Helmuth Rilling speaks about the B minor and demonstrates important places and generally cool things in the music. (http://oregonbachfestival.com/digitalbach/discovery/) But if you haven’t seen these, below are some brief paraphrases of what Maestro Rilling says about the Symbolum Nicenum. Here are some of his thoughts on movements 10, 11, 13, 17, 18.
In every Mass the Credo is the central thought. The composer asks “What do I say [of] the essential parts? How to understand this centuries-old text and say ‘I believe’?”
1. Stile antico: the Credo theme = a Gregorian chant melody. Saying what people have sung for centuries: this is our faith since a long time ago.
2. Patrem omnipotentem: almighty Father, maker of heaven and earth/maker of the world. Here Bach connects the texts of the 1st movement (Credo) with the 2nd. Relates to an early piece, BWV 77, “got wie der Name” with the ‘end of the world’ line [Welt ende] – descending line, ends down.
3. Et incarnatus est – the last choral piece Bach composed.
4. Confiteor – double fugue, stile antico (nearly a capella). First “Confiteor” (“I confess”); then “In remissionem” (“in the forgiving of sins”). HR: “Putting the two fugues together = only if you have faith will your sins be forgiven.”
5. Et expecto: “I am expecting the resurrection of the dead.” Begins in the tonality of the “Et resurrexit” (D major), but moves to E-flat minor.
Pretty amazing music in an amazing musical structure, and it’s wonderful that we can see and hear the musicians of the OBF bring it to life. This is only a small taste of what Helmuth Rilling has to say about the Mass – I hope you will listen to all of the videos.
I looked back at last night’s rehearsal, and even though I spent a LOT of time nagging, you should be proud of what we accomplished:
From the Symbolum Nicenum:
Credo
Patrem omnipotentem
Et incarnatus
Crucifixus
Et resurrexit
From the Missa:
Qui tollis
That’s a good night of work, and it wasn’t all note-bashing; a few times we made music as well. Imagine what we will accomplish when we all know our parts. What I am asking of you all is to actively spend time outside of rehearsal looking at your score, working with the learning CD, and listening to recordings. Our rehearsals last two hours. If each of you spent another 8 hours (or even 6) studying between rehearsals, we’d see incredible improvement before Thanksgiving.
How often do we get to really study a work of art for an extended period of time – to dig into it mentally and physically? It’s so much more than running off to a museum for a few hours, or listening to the BSO on any given night. It’s a privilege to learn this piece. Grab the chance to put Bach’s amazing musical structures into your heads, and let yourself develop the muscle memory to produce beautiful, accurate and expressive tones.
It’s why we sing anyway, eh? Let’s do it right.
(WARNING: somewhat labored analogy ahead.)
Last summer we went on a rafting trip down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. I am not a hiker but somehow made it down the Bright Angel Trail, Bach B Minor score in my pack. As we journeyed through the Canyon I sang through vocal lines and analyzed the score while marveling at the awesome (in the true sense of the word) world around me. (Consequently, there are lots of water spots in my score!)
The opening bars of the Mass were visually depicted everyday in the towering cliffs around us as we traveled down the river – I cannot hear you sing those beginning four measures without seeing the Canyon walls. As we approached rapids, our guides explained how they were interpreting the patterns in the water and seeing where the holes are. You can go around a hole or sometimes just blast through it; just as, for instance, in the Cum Sancto Spiritu fugue we see the patterns – a wave from the altos at m169, clashing with the tenors’ eddying run. And at the episode beginning in the middle of m186, we have…a hole. The basses carry us right over the top of it to the calm waters of the new tonality – b minor.
Or we may get stuck in an eddy [perhaps in the Pleni sunt coeli, m153]. We’re tired and it’s hard work to paddle out. Ah but there’s the bass fanfare in 158 and then the subject in 162 – we’re back in the current, heading downstream, happy campers.
The men and women who were our guides for that week have a love and deep knowledge of the Canyon and of the river. They absolutely enjoy and adore the rapids, which give them a chance to perform highly technical feats while giving us a stupendous ride. And that’s what I want for you: intimate knowledge of our rapids, with the ability both to see where the holes are and to experience terrific joy as we blast through them to the always-amazing final cadence.
We’ve had our three “open” rehearsals, and we have lots of new members and great energy in the room. This week we’ll take a deeper look at the two Kyrie movements and do a little dancing with the Pleni sunt coeli.
Chris Shepherd, the music director of the Worcester Chorus in Worcester, MA and the Desoff Choirs in NYC, has written some marvelous blog posts about the B minor. Here is a bit of what he writes about the opening Kyrie fugue subject:
“We see in this fugue subject the same kind of upward yearning that we saw in the opening four bars. If you following the upper notes of the subject, they form the same general outline as the first four bars at the opening of the piece.
There’s a new element here, though, which I think is included for theological reasons. Yes, the movement is upwards, but then there are the pairs of lower notes that interrupt the upward motion.
I’ve always felt that this gives the subject “two steps forward, one step back” kind of feel…In theological terms, it is the true sense of the Kyrie, “Lord have mercy”. The Lutherans put a great deal of emphasis on sin, so the meaning of the Kyrie is not just asking God for mercy, but also at the same time admitting one’s own need for mercy. In order to understand what this meant for Bach, we shouldn’t whitewash the depth of emotion attached to this cry for mercy. Even in the 2006 Lutheran Book of Worship, the admission of sin is pretty strong stuff:
“O Almighty God, merciful Father, I a poor, miserable sinner, confess to you all my sins and iniquities, with which I have ever offended you and justly deserved your punishment now and forever.”
So this idea of the lower notes representing the individual being pulled back down to their own sinfulness is a powerful one, even though we would prefer to think of the more cheerful idea of mankind reaching up towards God with the rising scale.” (http://dessoff.org/MusicDirectorBlog/page/4/)
We’re off to a great start – we began learning both Kyries, the Gloria, Et in terra pax, Gratias agimus tibi, and the Qui tollis. On Monday (Sept 16) we’ll sightread: Cum Sancto Spiritu and the entire Symbolum Nicenum [Credo, Patrem omnipotentem, Et incarnatus est, Crucifixus, Et resurrexit, Confiteor, Et expecto).
BTW, I’ve posted a page with some markings for the Kyrie- click on the image and it will grow.
Here’s a nice summation of the Symbolum Nicenum, by Peter Berquist:
“The Credo has an even more elaborate symmetrical construction. Two choruses open and two close the Credo; both pairs begin with a movement in stile antico (“Credo in unum Deum” and “Confiteor”) followed by a concerted movement with full orchestra (“Patrem omnipotentem” and “Et expecto”). These pairs of choruses frame two solo pieces, the duet “Et in unum Deum” and the aria “Et in Spiritum Sanctum.” These in turn frame the central part of the Credo, the choral triptych—“Et incarnatus,” “Crucifixus,” and “Et resurrexit”—which states the fundamental tenets of Christian belief: Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.”
And to close, a reminder of the work’s universality:
“The universal spirit of Bach which manifests itself in the B-Minor Mass produces… the paradox that one of the most Christian works in all of sacred music transcends and dissolves its confessional limits, serving instead the whole of humanity – non-Christians included.
“It may seem odd at first glance that as a Buddhist I have theologically come to terms with one of the most Christian works of European music history, Bach’s B-Minor Mass. The conciliatory spirit which manifests itself in this work nevertheless encouraged me to do so.”
-Yoshitake Kobayashi, Bach scholar (1987)
nvcsings 