ALL TICKETS $20
(707) 54-MUSIC (707-546-8742)

Program Notes
by: Robert Worth

Welcome to Young Masters: Bach and Handel 1707! Tonight we journey back some 300 years for a close look (and listen) at what two now rather famous composers were doing at the age of 22. Bach and Handel were both born in 1685, only 125 miles apart. Both composers received plenty of early instruction and experience, so that at an age when many music students today graduate from college, they were already holding down serious professional positions and producing major works. I have always been fascinated in particular with many of these composers works from the year 1707, when Bach was working at the church of S. Blasius in the eastern German city of Mühlhausen, and Handel was writing Latin church music in Rome. Some of my all-time favorite works by these composers were written during this year, and it has always been a dream of mine to explore these early works in a concert dedicated exclusively to 1707.

Both of our Handel works tonight are part of a Carmelite Vespers celebration, for which Handel provided music at the request of his patron Cardinal Carlo Colonna. The festival was to honor the Virgin Mary as the patroness of the Carmelites, and was celebrated in the church of Santa Maria di Monte Santo, one of the famous twin churches which still stand on the south side of the Piazza del Popolo. It is not entirely clear which of Handel’s Roman works were included in the service, but the Vespers service for the festival requires the performance of the psalms Dixit Dominus and Laudate pueri, and our two Handel works tonight were no doubt included in the July 16 occasion. Andrew Parrott has reconstructed the service, with the relevant Handel works, other works and Gregorian chant, recorded in 1989 by the Taverner Choir and Players.

We open with the Laudate pueri, a festive, celebratory psalm which from the outset calls upon the servants of the Lord to sing praises; and do they ever, especially the soprano soloists! The psalm is set in eight movements, dividing the text more or less verse by verse, concluding with the standard doxology (Glory be the father, and the son, and the holy Spirit…). In the opening movement, the central role of the soprano voice is declared in an extended solo, leading finally to the entrance of the tutti choir. Thenceforth, Handel alternates soprano arias and choral movements throughout the piece, brilliantly adapting his musical style to the various moods of the text. The final movement begins with an affecting solo by the oboe, which duets extensively with the soprano before introducing the choir at the words: ‘As it was in the beginning…’ Here, in a time-honored musical pun, the music return to the opening movement, vividly reflecting the text and also rounding the work as a whole.

Bach’s earliest extant cantatas are firmly in the tradition of the German cantata, while of course revealing Bach’s incredible inventiveness and concern for text expression. The cantatas from the Mühlhausen years are far different from the later Leipzig works, which fall into a pattern in which the full ensemble presents an opening statement, followed by a sequence of aria-recitative pairs, and closing with a four-part chorale. Instead, each piece develops its own form, often derived from a libretto formed of Old Testament texts and poetic commentary. Chorales do occur, but generally not in four-part harmonizations. Instrumentation ranges widely, from antique ensembles such as that used for the famous Actus Tragicus (recorders, violas da gamba and continuo) to the very up-to-date full orchestra of Cantata 71 (Gott ist mein König). Generally we get a feeling of experimentation and exuberance, a young composer fully come into his powers, and taking great pleasure in manipulating notes, words, voices and instruments in the service of God.

Cantata 131 (Aus der Tiefen ruf ich, Herr, zu dir: Cantata 131 is one of the most famous of Bach’s early cantatas. It is a symmetrical five-movement work with large choral movements at beginning and end (1 and 5), arias with chorale cantus firmus (2 and 4), and, dead center, a chorus which depicts hope and expectation by means of an ever-evolving, never-resolving harmonic edifice (3). Beginning from despair (Psalm 130: ‘Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord’), it moves progressively to a state of hope and eager anticipation for the coming of the Lord.

Cantata 131 opens with a bleak sinfonia of sadness, which flows without break into the opening choral statement. At the words ‘Lord, hear my voice’, however, the piece surges forward urgently into a fugal texture, culminating in a famous passage in which Bach breaks the word ‘Flehens’ (supplication) into sobbing patterns, with special dynamic treatment. The arias for tenor and bass each feature a verse from a single chorale, entering in ghostly long notes well after the soloists’ opening statement. In the final movement, we find once again extreme responsiveness to text demands, with tempo changes, harmonic shifts and distinctive textures giving way to each other in succession. The piece ends with a stunning Phrygian cadence, complete with choral trills and soaring oboe obligato.

Cantata 196 (Der Herr denket an uns): Cantata 196 may have been written for the wedding of Johann Lorenz Stauber (the pastor who married Bach and his first wife) and Regina Wedemann (an aunt of Bach’s wife). It is a brief work in five movements, opening with a sinfonia which sets a mood of (one might say) solemn joy. This is followed by a series of four movements which call down the blessings of God on house and family. The two big choral movements display some additional typical features of the early Bach cantatas. Each of the movements has an extended fugal section; but as contrasted with Bach’s later fugues, these pieces do not fully explore the available key areas and distant reaches of development. Rather, they are content to reside primarily on tonic and dominant harmonies, which yield to each other in somewhat predictable but entirely satisfying fashion. The themes themselves tend to be bubbly and extremely melodic. In addition, special words or phrases receive special word-painting. For example, in the final movement, at the text ‘He who made heaven and earth’, Bach takes all voices to the sky on the word ‘Himmel’, and drops them to the basement on ‘Erde’.

To close our concert, we return to the music of Handel, specifically the great Dixit Dominus. I was first exposed to this work at a choral conducting workshop in 1985, where I sang it with the workshop ensemble and went away thinking, ‘Well, there’s a piece we have to do someday!’ I was in fact able to conduct the Dixit in 1989, and again in 1995, but it’s been too long!

Handel has taken the war-like psalm text and created a powerful, iconoclastic masterpiece. As in the Laudate pueri, he divides the text into eight sections, closing with the doxology. But there end the parallels. It’s almost as if, in his response to the very different and challenging text, he remakes himself as a composer, producing a tight, thrilling, often jagged style which, though difficult to render, is incomparable in its effect, in many ways standing above and beyond even the great works of the master’s maturity.

The piece opens in a stern G Minor, with the spare string orchestra setting a mood of strength, danger and even at times chaos, prefiguring the battle scenes to come. The choir enters with a well-etched theme in the alto voice; this theme recurs throughout the piece in various forms, combined and recombined with one of the Gregorian psalm tones in long-notes. As in many of the movements, Handle doesn’t shy away from disjunct lines and wrenching harmonic shifts, and employs a particularly large tessitura for the voices, particularly in the sopranos and tenors.

After the second and third movements, which feature solo alto and soprano voices in contrasting styles selected to suit the text, the chorus re-enters on the words, ‘The Lord has sworn, and will not repent.’ Here, Handel portrays the strength of the vow with a powerful homophonic texture and imperious chromatic shifts, followed by an extended fugato section. This flows without break into an impressive and joyful double-fugue on the text, ‘You are a priest according to the order of Melchisech.’

The sixth movement sets the two psalm verses which depict the vivid punishment to be meted out to the rebellious ones. Here Handel pulls out all the stops, beginning with an urgent, perpetual-motion quintet picked up by the choir, extending through an elegiac section to an increasingly intense and hammering portrayal of the smashing of heads throughout the earth.

The seventh movement (De torrente) features the two sopranos in clashing suspensions, accompanied by pulsing notes in the orchestra and a plaintive refrain sung by the tenors and basses of the choir. This is followed directly by the finale, an astounding doxology setting in two large parts. Opening with solo passagework, Handel gradually brings in the full choir, culminating in a homophonic cadence on the words, ‘Now and forever.’ And here, he takes the opportunity to portray the word forever in most vivid terms. He commences with a repeated-note theme which gives way to a sequential ‘Amen’ motive as the following voice enters. Once the tutti ensemble is in, we’re off on a truly hair-raising ride, in which Handel explores every possible implication of his themes, breaking them down and reconstructing them over and over again; at its most extreme, just before he starts to prepare us for the closing stretto section, Handel introduces a passage which we have taken to calling the ‘alien music’; here, he extracts a single two-note motive from his thematic material, and throws it back and forth between sections as he modulates to distant lands—a passage unlike anything I have ever seen in Handel (or anywhere else, for that matter).

I want to close with a final thought. It has always struck me as strange that some of the works I love best by these composers come from their early years. It would seem that, with further experience, they would produce finer and finer works. And in some ways, this is probably true. Yet, at 22, both of our composers seem to have been still exploring the rule-book, so to speak, and making up new solutions to each problem encountered. This produces a sense of flexibility and discovery, through which each work emerges as sui generis, a unique and precious treasure.

back to top