Some readers may recall that, last month, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (PBO) musicians traveled to New York for the latest installment in a series of side-by-side concerts presented in partnership with instrumentalists and vocal soloists in the J415 ensemble at the Juilliard School. The performance, presented in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, consisted entirely of Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 232 B minor setting of the Mass text. In past seasons such a performance would then “hit the road” with the Juilliard performers coming to the Bay Area to repeat the event for PBO fans.
This year, however, that “road show” was curtailed due to prevailing pandemic conditions. Nevertheless, PBO Music Director Richard Egarr decided to present BWV 232 in a performance with strictly PBO resources, both the Orchestra and the Chorale, and vocal soloists. Those soloists were soprano Mary Bevan, countertenor Iestyn Davies, tenor James Gilchrist, and baritone Roderick Williams. They were joined by Chorale soprano Tonia d’Amelio for two selections that require five soloists. Last night that performance was presented here in San Francisco at Herbst Theatre.
BWV 232 was never performed during Bach’s lifetime. Many regular readers probably know by now that, towards the end of his life, Bach shifted his attention from composing music for performance to preparing documents of pedagogical value. The best known of these was BWV 1080, given the title The Art of Fugue; and Bach died before completing it. This was a document of “pure notation,” demonstrating the wide diversity of approaches that one could take when composing a fugue or a canon. I have also suggested that the second set of 24 preludes and fugues in The Well-Tempered Clavier was also written for similar pedagogical purposes (with perhaps a bit of autobiography as well).
Manuscript of the opening of the “Symbolum Nicenum” section of BWV 232, combining vocal polyphony with a “walking bass” (photograph of the manuscript page, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
In that context it is worth remembering that BWV 232 is basically a “composite” of past and new creations. Like his other pedagogical projects, the emphasis in BWV 232 is on polyphony, frequently involving the interplay of instruments and voices. Given that Bach was a Lutheran, his decision to work with the text of the Latin Mass may have been an effort at abstraction, just as the BWV 1080 fugues allocated each “voice” to its own staff with no suggestions of instrumentation. Unlike BWV 1080, on the other hand, BWV 232 adds vocal performance to the mix, not only in choral polyphony but also in the interplay of solo voices and solo instruments.
Over the many years in which Bach involved himself with teaching, he was consistently aware that education was not a matter of mere pedagogy. Pedagogy may have provided the “nuts and bolts” of scholarship. However, making music (through composition and/or performance) was a matter of subjectivity extending far beyond the abstractions of pedagogical principles. Thus, while BWV 232 may have been a product of “informed abstraction,” it carried a “musical core” that would only reveal itself through subjective performance.
That subjectivity was consistently on display last night in Herbst. As always, there was a rich layer of personality in Egarr’s approach to conducting. However, one also came away with the impression that he encouraged mining personality traits from both vocal and instrumental soloists, particularly in the more elaborate passages in which two or more solo lines would interleave. As a result, the attentive listener was as engaged by instrumentalists such as violinist Elizabeth Blumenstock, oboist Marc Schachman, and hornist Todd Williams as by the “visiting” vocalists.
BWV 232 may have had it “roots” in pedagogy; but the “flowers” of performance made last night’s PBO offering a thoroughly engaging occasion.
No comments:
Post a Comment