Old repertoire, fresh inspiration

Musical Director’s notes February 23rd 2014
Listening to the recording of our recent interview on Hunts Community Radio (follow the link via our website) one of the DJ’s comments resonated – he emphasised a ‘quite remarkable’ aspect of our society - our size in terms of membership.  On a completely different tack, Sally and I recently attended an exceptionally lofty and equally expensive university reunion – up ‘The Shard’ of all places.  An old flat mate of mine who has forged a successful career as a tenor (I hope one day to book him for a concert) said that, in his experience, demand from choral societies for soloists has plummeted – so many groups have either folded or moved away from the classical repertoire.  In one particular December in the late 1980s, he found himself booked for 15 Messiahs; nowadays he finds more reliable income from work as a freelance chorus member of Opera North and at Covent Garden.  As time marches on, the business of maintaining records of our ‘remarkable’ journey, becomes all the more interesting and valuable.  Before moving further with this, there must be space to share a notable milestone:  1974 was the year of the formation of the choral society under its current name, so presumably we’re in the midst of our ‘ruby’ season.  I think that’s worthy of a glass or two of port!
With yet another wonderful concert done and dusted, thoughts turn once again towards future repertoire for which an important point of reference is always the historical record of works performed; I’m in the process of updating John Smoothy’s excellent listing of concerts since the mid-1960s associated with St Ives Choral Society and its forbears.  Time for some more numbers:  you presumably knew that, on February 8th 2014, you endured my wild gesticulations for the 44th consecutive concert.  My gym membership must be paying off since that’s considerably more than any of my predecessors – although that’s definitely stretching a point in one case.
So, what became of them all?   In this respect, the internet is a powerful resource.   In 1984, when I was busy taking my A-level exams, the society staged a memorial concert for Charles Cannon, conductor of 32 concerts from the very first year of the previous incarnation of the choral society in 1966 until his retirement in 1981, although, undoubtedly, he must have brandished his baton at very many more concerts over the years.  He founded the original SIMADS in 1935 and was conducting performances of St Paul, Elijah, Samson and Judas Maccabaeus in the early post-war years; our society came into existence when SIMADS moved exclusively into the domain of musicals in the 1960s.  There must be plenty of records of his activities worthy of research.
Much more recently, my predecessor and good friend, Chris Jessop (21 concerts, 1997-2001), is the only MD I have ever known.  He will be a familiar face to many of you, lives locally and continues to be musically active, currently as Musical Director of Swavesey Community Choir and previously associated with the Orlando Singers of Cambridge and Huntingdonshire Philharmonic.  I tracked down Robert Webb (28 concerts, 1992-7) via Oxford to Yorkshire.  He seems to have been a serial collector of Musical Directorships, currently working with Bel Canto, Sheffield Chamber Choir, the Sterndale Singers and the Danensian Choir; he is also Accompanist and Assistant Musical Director of Sheffield City Opera and Accompanist to the Sheffield University Singers’ Society – a consummate career conductor!   Richard Walshaw (23 concerts, 1982-7) I’m less certain about – although either he or his ‘namesake’ is on record as the Musical Director of RTWOMVC…, you know….Royal Tunbridge Wells Orpheus Male Voice Choir.  Christopher Moore (13 concerts, 1987-1990) sandwiched a stint in South Africa of all places - Organist and Director of Music at the Cathedral of St Michael and St George, Grahamstown, also teaching at Rhodes University - between possibly more peaceful existences in Suffolk: he is currently Assistant Director of Music at St Mary-le-Tower, the civic church of Ipswich and conductor of Bury St Edmunds Friendly Orchestra.  Gary Malins (9 concerts, 1990-1992) currently draws a blank.
I’d be interested in receiving, in writing please, anecdotal information from anyone about these past incumbents – previous memories, written information such as programme notes, current knowledge equally welcome – hopefully this will lead to further articles in future Keynotes.  I think I’ve just created a rather interesting case for a society archivist suited to anyone with a small amount of spare time and access to the internet.  If you are interested, do let us know!
Finally, a return to the more serious point of all of this: namely, repertoire.  Another opportunity presented by the internet is the ritual snooping on similar lists of works performed by other societies.  My conclusion, as I draw up a finalised list of repertoire for the years 2014-2016 and, in the process, contemplate completing that half century of performances, is that our organisation has matured greatly in terms of the breadth of our repertoire.  In earlier years, concerts involved frequent repetition, particularly of Messiah, Creation etc.  Masterpieces though they may be, it is reassuring to note that we now take a more measured approach, perhaps with the idea of turning over these popular works every 10-15 years rather than every few years.  That’s a real accomplishment and an excellent reason for sticking around to witness, first hand, more local musical history in the making!

Bach: Mass in B minor, BWV 232

The following notes accompany our performance on 8th February, 2014 in the Free Church, St Ives

Mass in B Minor BWV 232 - J.S Bach (1685-1750)

Bach’s career frustrations

Most of us will recognise that demoralising feeling where, at certain times in a career, good work is left unrecognised by those who should know better.  Bach’s duties in his new appointment as Thomaskantor at Leipzig from 1723 had instigated a concentrated and exceptionally productive period of composition which had yielded several Passion settings, including the famous St Matthew Passion, and no fewer than five annual cycles of church cantatas.  Such activity wasn’t unusual – other composers of the day, such as the preferred choice of the Leipzig authorities, Telemann, had written many more.  Retrospectively, of course, we have come to acknowledge the superb craftsmanship underlying Bach’s output.  Evidently, his employers remained unmoved and so when, towards the end of the 1720s, his industry came to rather an abrupt halt, we can only imagine the state of his mind.  

Other mitigating circumstances must have included his sense of unease for the financial security of his growing family which, itself, frequently featured unspeakable personal tragedy in the form of the untimely death of his first wife and, prematurely, of more than half of his children from both marriages.  Moreover, he may well have been simply rather fed up with the monotony of his existence.  Perhaps he had reached that point where fresh challenges were needed.  By and by, of course, these presented themselves.   

 In 1729 he took on the directorship of Leipzig’s prestigious Collegium Musicum and additionally accepted the title of honorary Kapellmeister to Duke Christian of Saxe Weissenfels.  Such appointments served not only to reinforce his standing within the region, providing welcome familial security, but also to broaden the general scope of his creativity beyond the limitations of the Lutheran Church and its liturgy. 

In 1733, following the death of the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, August the Strong, a five month period of mourning resulted in the banning of all musical performances.  Bach, seemingly continuing his quest for wider recognition, seized upon this unexpected freedom to write a piece of liturgical music for the Catholic court at Dresden in the hope of procuring a court title from the new Elector.  The result was the Kyrie and Gloria from the B Minor Mass.  In the accompanying letter, he wrote:

For some years and up to the present moment I have held the Directorium of the Music in the two principal churches in Leipzig, but have innocently had to suffer one injury or another, and on occasion also a diminution of the fees accruing to me in this office; but these injuries would disappear altogether if Your Royal Highness would grant me the favour of conferring upon me a title of Your Highness’s Court Capella, and would let Your High Command for the issuing of such a document go forth to the proper place.

Ultimately, Bach’s career plan was successful although, despite evidence that his music was performed in Dresden, it wasn’t until 1736 that the title of ‘Hofkapellmeister’ to the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland was conferred upon him.

Bach’s developing Mass

The Lutheran church had little need for Mass settings and, on the few major church feasts when such music was required, Bach would invariably resort to settings by other composers such as Palestrina, whose six-voice Missa Sine Nomine he was known to have copied out and subsequently performed with added trumpets, trombones and continuo.  Moreover, the Lutheran missa was a brief affair, consisting only of shortened settings of the Kyrie and Gloria, and omitting all of the remaining sections. 

The two parts of Bach’s Dresden mass were, by contrast, exceptionally broad in scope, very much in keeping with customary practice at this court, which was to allocate separate movements to each new line of words.  Nevertheless it is clear that he wanted to impress, placing great value in the use of contrasting compositional styles and the opulence of the scoring – five part choir, orchestra including timpani, three trumpets, horn, oboes, flutes and bassoons alongside strings and continuo.  In the reflective Kyrie, an operatic-style duet in the Christe Eleison is framed by an immense opening Kyrie I, featuring an extensive 5-part fugue with obbligato orchestra, and a more retrospective Kyrie II in which the orchestra merely doubles the vocal counterpoint.

By contrast, the opening movement of the Gloria is an effervescent affirmation of faith with trumpets and timpani added to the ensemble.   Throughout the whole of the Gloria, virtuosic demands made on chorus and orchestra in four extensive choral movements are matched by highly characterful solo movements which respectively throw the spotlight on solo violin, flute, oboe d’amore and horn whilst giving all five choral soloists a thorough vocal workout.

Bach’s completed mass

Whether Bach had always intended these movements to form the opening of a completed Grand Solemn Mass is debatable.   Indeed, no further evidence of work exists until the final few years of his life by which time his compositional motives were much changed.  By 1748, we find an aging Bach very much preoccupied with his legacy - putting together groups of compositions to represent the summation of a life’s work.  Alongside other works from this time - the Goldberg Variations for keyboard, The Musical Offering and the famously unfinished Art of Fugue for chamber ensembles, ‘Vom Himmel hoch’ Variations for organ - he seemed to be looking for another project which would represent the very best of his choral output.   In such a context, the Symbolum Nicenum, Sanctus, Osanna, Benedictus, Agnus Dei and Dona nobis pacem came into existence, completing his magnificent B Minor Mass.

Interestingly, few of these additional movements were newly composed, most being ‘parodies’ of former works – where old music was recycled and presented in a new context.  Such techniques were perfectly commonplace and often resulted in the parody being more effective than the original.  It also presented the reflective Bach with opportunities to look through what must have been a vast library of personal manuscripts for material which might be fit for purpose.  For example, the ‘Crucifixus’ came from his cantata no 12 of 1714, the original words ‘Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen’ (Weeping, lamenting, worrying, fearing) neatly fitting the measure of ‘Crucifixus, crucifixus…’ and the music possessing an apposite sharpness of dissonance perhaps to represent the crown of thorns and the nails on the cross. 

By means of unification with the existing 1733 music, Bach went further than ever before to present every conceivable compositional device in the most consummate, artistic manner.  In particular, the liturgical canon of the Credo aptly receives musical, canonical treatment with the original latin plainchant turned into a complex canon for five voices.  Later, in the ‘Confiteor’ he returns to plainchant, employing the old fashioned device of cantus firmus and, hence, nodding to the great Renaissance composers of the sixteenth century.  The dona nobis pacem forms a musical reprise of the Gloria’s ‘gratias agimus tibi’.

Bach’s musical legacy

Bach wasn’t the only one thinking about wrapping-up his life’s work.  In 1749, we find his ever callous and insensitive employers busy interviewing candidates to replace him at Leipzig in the expectation of his eventual death.  Around this time, apparently an afterthought, he extracted the words ‘Et incarnatus est’ from the end of the duet ‘Et in unum Dominum,’ thus creating a separate movement which was apparently his final choral setting[1].   Bach died in July 1750, his demise apparently hastened by the services of a maverick English eye surgeon, whose botched series of operations left him blind and in much distress and pain. 

Bach would never hear his completed mass performed.  It seems that no serious steps were taken during his remaining lifetime so to do.  This has led to some commentators suggesting that, alongside works such as the aforementioned Art of Fugue, it was never intended for performance so much as legacy and academic study.   Though such a perspective seems rather silly, it is borne from certain inescapable truths not least of which is the shear difficulty of the notes.  We know, in the later eighteenth century, that Bach had become the musical cognoscenti’s best kept secret – exceptionally highly respected, though rather unfashionable with only his keyboard works widely shared.  Mozart famously declared, on hearing his motet Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, “What is this?  Now there is something one can learn from!”  Haydn, in his old age, took the trouble to acquire a manuscript of the B minor mass.  Beethoven was acutely aware both of its existence and by the challenge posed through its sheer scale when contemplating his own Missa Solemnis in the 1820s. However, it was well over a hundred years after Bach’s death before the first complete performance.

That Romantic view of a great composer left forgotten with manuscripts gathering dust or, worse still, frittered away is misleading to say the least.  His library was mainly divided between his two eldest surviving sons: Wilhelm Friedman and Carl Philip Emmanuel and it is certainly true that the former was rather profligate – we will never come to know the many important works lost through his reckless deeds.  Thankfully, by far the most comprehensive collection of works derives from CPE Bach’s careful curatorship including the complete manuscript of the B minor Mass.  The choice of B minor as a key is strangely misleading, since the predominant key is D major – handy for the tuning of trumpets at the time.  The seriousness of the initial minor key, used in 5 of the 27 movements, gives way to the optimism of D major in 13 others, including the very end where, for the first and only time in the whole piece, Bach signs off his work, as indeed was the case with all of his liturgical works, S.D.G - ‘Soli Deo Gloria’ – for glory to God alone.

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[1] There is evidence that, in his final week of life in July 1750, a completely blind Bach was, by dictation, tinkering with the harmony of his chorale setting, “Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein” (When we are in greatest distress), and changing its text to the original sixteenth century version: “Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit” (Before your throne I now appear).