Monday, February 18, 2019

A Delightful Afternoon of Bach Cantatas from ABS

Yesterday afternoon in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, American Bach Soloists (ABS) presented the San Francisco performance of the second of the four subscription concerts in its 30th anniversary season. As was observed when the season was announced, all four of the programs were planned to be devoted entirely to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach; and the title of yesterday’s program was Favorite Bach Cantatas. All four of the cantatas on the program had been performed when ABS was founded in 1989.

The first half of the program was devoted to BWV 78, Jesu, der du meine Seele (Jesus, You, who are my soul), and BWV 140, Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (awake, calls the voice to us). Each of these movements has at least one movement that, through the proliferation of popular recordings, has escalated to “greatest hit” status. The intermission was followed by the so-called “German Magnificat,” BWV 10, Meine Seel erhebt den Herrn (my soul magnifies the Lord). The program then concluded with the cantata based on the most popular Lutheran hymn, BWV 80, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (a mighty fortress is our God). For both of these cantatas, the audience was invited to join the ensemble in singing the final chorales with both music and words included in the program book.

Unless I am mistaken, my first encounter with ABS took place around the time that the group was concluding its first decade. I was living in Palo Alto, doing technical research at the Fuji Xerox Palo Alto Laboratory; and Artistic & Music Director Jeffrey Thomas brought a few ABS vocalists and instrumentalists to Stanford University to perform a program of Bach cantata arias (and possibly one or more duets). This was the first time I had given the Bach cantata literature serious listening; and I was quickly hooked, hooked enough to be an early purchaser of the Bach 2000 complete works collection!

One of the things that hooked me was the combination of the chamber music approach to those solos and duets embedded in the richer ensemble work provided to accompany the chorus sections. The overall plan of each cantata lends itself to this alternation of genres. The entire piece is framed by two performances of the hymn after which the cantata is named, concluding with a four-part harmonization of the hymn for full ensemble and opening with a chorale prelude based on the hymn theme. Both BWV 140 and BWV 80 also insert a second chorale prelude in the middle of the intervening sequence of arias and/or duets.

While this structure is moderately rigid, the extensive diversity of Bach’s capacity for invention brings a decidedly unique personal stamp to each of the 200 compositions classified as sacred cantatas. That diversity was readily appreciated yesterday afternoon, not only through thematic content but also through the choices of instrumental and vocal resources. The solos and duets covered all four of the vocal ranges with guest artists Nola Richardson (soprano), Jay Carter (countertenor), and Tyler Duncan (baritone). Tenor Zachary Wilder was obliged to withdraw due to illness, but he was replaced by one of the tenors in the American Bach Choir, David Kurtenbach.

The oboe da caccia (photograph taken by Takashi Ogawa for the Bach-Gesellschaft Wiesbaden, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)

The instrumental resources, on the other hand, were colored by imaginative wind resources. These included a cornetto played by Stephen Escher, a curved oboe da caccia played by Priscilla Herreid, and some energetic contributions to the continuo by bassoonist Clay Zeller-Townson. The other imaginative continuo work came when Steven Lehning chose to play his violone pizzicato during BWV 78, recalling a recording in which Ron Carter plucked his bass to add an extra continuo layer to a performance of Bach’s BWV 1048 (third) “Brandenburg” concerto in G major. In addition, leader Elizabeth Blumenstock had to shift from violin to the smaller violino piccolo, a somewhat less cooperative instrument, for the performance of BWB 140. Both string and vocal resources were kept small enough to fit comfortably on the St. Mark’s altar, suggesting that their numbers were probably not that different from those of the groups that Bach led at the services for which he provided the music.

The overall experience was thoroughly engaging. No cantata overstayed its welcome, and even the interstitial recitative passages proceeded at a fair clip. Each cantata established its own identify not only through the music itself but from vocal and instrumental resources summoned to present that music. Thomas presided at the podium, providing a stimulating account that reminded me to go back to my Bach cantata recordings more often.

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