Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven
Page 85
Key
The BWV numbers are in different colours:
Black Newly composed works
Blue Earlier works revived
Red Parodies of secular cantatas composed in Cöthen
Green* Series of nine cantatas with texts by Christiane Mariane von Ziegler most probably planned to follow on from the John Passion (1st version) after Easter in 1724 but only completed by Bach in the spring of 1725
Green** Three new cantatas that bear a striking affinity to five for this period in 1724 but not set to music till now (illustration credit 16)
17. The Tree of Life
This image by Christian Romstet (1640–1721), with Jesus tending his garden, accompanies the Biblische Erklärung by Johann Olearius (1611–84), of which Bach owned a copy. Bach used learned counterpoint as a means of reflecting on the subject of death. (illustration credit 17)
18. & 19. Elias Gottlob Haussmann: Two Portraits of Bach
Haussmann was the official painter to Leipzig’s Town Council. Dating from 1746, the above is the first of only two fully authenticated portraits of Bach. Located in the Stadtmuseum, it has been restored at least four times: after layers of over-painting the canvas is a ruin and the original paint has disappeared in several places. The later and better preserved of the two portraits (opposite), was gifted to Emanuel Bach by his father in 1749. Listed in the catalogue of Emanuel’s effects (c. 1798) it turned up in a curiosity shop in Breslau (c. 1820), and travelled to England in a rucksack (1936). For the past sixty years it has belonged to William H. Scheide, of Princeton, New Jersey. (illustration credit 18)
20. Viola d’amore
This instrument, praised for its ‘tender and languishing effect’ (Mattheson), is by Sebastian Kloz of Mittenwald (1767). It has six playing strings supported by the curved bridge (more elliptical than that of a violin) and six ‘sympathetic’ strings threaded through the bridge and under the fingerboard. Bach’s motif for the central aria in his John Passion replicates the shape of the sacred rainbow, like the instrument itself. (illustration credit 20)
21. Oboe da caccia
Played by Michael Niesemann, principal oboe of the English Baroque Soloists, this tenor ‘oboe of the chase’ is a copy of one made by J. H. Eichentopf in Leipzig around the time of Bach’s arrival there as Thomascantor. It consists of a leather-covered wooden body ending in a flared brass bell. The bore and outward profiles are first created on the lathe; then a series of saw kerfs are made through the bore from the side, which becomes the inner curve. The instrument is then bent over steam and a slat glued on to the inside curve to hold it in place. (illustration credit 21)
22. Violoncello piccolo
By A. & H. Amati, Cremona, c. 1600, played by David Watkin, principal cello of the English Baroque Soloists. By virtue of its fifth string, its distinctive lighter sound and wide-ranging agility, the cello piccolo allowed Bach, who was forever seeking out different ways of shaping the inner parts of his vocal and instrumental writing, to explore new sonorities in nine of his surviving church cantatas. (illustration credit 22)
23. Violoncello piccolo obbligato from BWV 41 Jesu, nun sei gepreiset
Bach is concerned to convey the all-encompassing nature of Jesus as Alpha and Omega – hence his choice of the wide-spanning five-stringed cello piccolo in this tenor aria. Viewed purely as a graphic image Bach’s handwritten part is a thing of extraordinary beauty; but it is also a wonderfully practical guide to the player – how to shape each musical gesture and phrase. (illustration credit 23)
24. Mendelssohn watercolour of the Thomascantorei, 1838
Mendelssohn was gifted at everything he turned his hand to, including watercolours. He painted this view of the Thomasschule and Thomaskirche under snow during the same winter that as principal conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra he introduced a series of four ‘historical concerts’ – a brief history of music in sound. His advocacy of Bach can be traced back to 1823, when his maternal grandmother gave him a copyist’s manuscript of the Matthew Passion, a score that seized his imagination and led him to conceive the idea of presenting this totally forgotten work in performance in 1829 in Berlin and in 1841 in Leipzig. (illustration credit 24)
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