Bach's celebrated choral works to be performed in Jakarta

Bach's celebrated choral works to be performed in Jakarta

By Y. Bintang Prakarsa

JAKARTA (JP): Closing the year of Bach's anniversary, the
Jakarta Oratorio Society (Stephen Tong, conductor) and Eliatha
Choir (Billy Kristanto, conductor), accompanied by the augmented
Capella Amadeus string orchestra (Grace Sudargo, director), will
join the celebration on Dec. 19 at Graha Gepembri in Kelapa
Gading Permai, North Jakarta.

The combined forces will perform selections from the
composer's celebrated choral works, a very welcome gesture that
will enhance on previous anniversary concerts dealing only with
his instrumental works.

The pieces to be heard are mainly first choruses of the
cantata Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, Magnificat, Christmas
Oratorio, and St. Matthew's Passion. All of them are later works,
composed for use at St. Thomas's and St. Nicholas's, as he was
then the music director of these two Leipzig churches. Thus, they
were intimately connected with the liturgical life of the
Lutheran church. In each composition, the music enhances the
chosen text for the assigned Sunday or festivity, giving the
Biblical text and its liturgical context a musical realization.

Most of the choruses, except the opening chorus of the
Passion, are related more or less to the Christmas season. The
cantata Wachet auf was intended to mark the end of the liturgical
year, an occasion that preceded the Advent and Christmas seasons.
The work has a mood of joyfulness and expectation, as the soul
awaits the coming of Christ. The first chorus elaborates the
first stanza of an old hymn (1599) by Philipp Nicolai that
paraphrases the Gospel parable about five wise girls (understood
as the Christian soul) that expect the coming bridegroom (Christ)
to join him in the wedding feast. Suggesting the joy and
excitement of the girls are the dotted rhythm and rising
syncopated melodies of the orchestral accompaniment.

The Magnificat is now Bach's most famous Latin work after the
Mass in B minor. Indeed, the composer himself might have thought
of it as one of his best, because he revised it later as a part
of his effort to establish definitive versions of his finest
compositions.

Magnificat is the Latin translation of the so-called Marian
hymn in the Gospel of Luke, traditionally sung during Vespers or
evening prayers. Earlier Bach's Magnificat was thought of as a
special composition for Christmas Vespers, but now it is proposed
that he might have just composed and used it for any (presumably
festive) Vespers.

Whatever the case, the lyrics speak of the wonder of God's
regard for His lowly servant and God's justice toward humanity.
The work is a miniature whose full duration does not exceed half
an hour, but Bach gave the lyrics an appropriate grandeur by
writing them for five voices (two sopranos, alto, tenor, and
bass) and a full orchestra. The resplendent choruses and
meditative solos vividly paint Mary's vision of the coming rule
of God's justice brought by Christ whom she bears in her womb.
Accompanied by full orchestra with trumpets and timpani and
packed with running melismas, the first chorus recalls the
confident opening phrase of the hymn, "My soul praises the Lord".

Christmas Oratorio is actually a set of six separate cantatas
that adorned the six services from Christmas (Dec. 25) to
Epiphany (Jan. 6). The first chorus that will be sung at the
concert belongs to the first cantata for Christmas proper,
premiered in 1734. The text, proclaiming the "deeds of
the Almighty", is also cast in jubilant, lilting triple time as
the first Magnificat chorus, with the unusual opening by timpani
alone. The reason is that it was a recycled product coming from
music written for the birthday of Maria Josepha, Electress of
Saxony and Queen of Poland the year before, and the first phrase
of the original words mention the sounding of drums.
Nevertheless, as in other recycled music of Bach's, the new
sacred words fit the music so well that one cannot detect its
secular associations if not told beforehand.

As a variety, Capella Amadeus will also play some purely
instrumental pieces. The first is the ever-popular, mellifluous
Air from one of the two Orchestral Suites in D major, nicknamed
(not by Bach, of course) the "Air on G String." The second is no
less popular for Baroque lovers, the Brandenburg Concerto no. 5,
whose first movement features the most impressive harpsichord
cadenza ever written in the Baroque era, no doubt designed by
Bach to impress the audience. For the concert, Billy Kristanto,
the only harpsichordist in Indonesia, will replace Bach at the
harpsichord. For more information, contact Lia or Ice at 3810912.