Bach's First Advent Cantatas

Many people have heard of the "Bach Cantata Pilgrimage." The year 2000 was the 250th anniversary of J.S. Bach's death. To commemorate the occasion, John Eliot Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir, and the English Baroque Soloists performed all of Bach's extant sacred cantatas in over sixty churches. To perform the cantatas each week in different locations was of course a complicated and relentless task, but the pieces were also recorded. Deutsche Grammophon was willing to release only a few of the cantatas so Gardiner established his own label, Soli Deo Gloria, to release the rest. Those words, "to the glory of God alone," were Bach's dedication of each cantata.

The cantatas were released in sets over these years and feature photographs by photojournalist Steve McCurry of people from around the world. (His famous picture is that of Sharbat Gula, "the Afghan girl," although that particular photo is not used on these sets.) The photos give a sense of the universality of the music of Bach and its themes. 

Back in 2013, all of the cantatas were released as a 56-CD box set. I purchased it from arkivmusic.com. Then I decided to do my own pilgrimage (less complicated than Gardiner's!) and listen to the cantatas on the Sundays represented by each. Then I wrote about them in a series of posts. Since the set begins with Christmas cantatas, I began with the First Sunday of Advent cantatas on Disc 52. 

I can't believe that it was seven years ago when I listened to these pieces! I would've thought it was just three or four years ago. 

It's well past time, then, to listen to these cantatas again. Here is what I wrote in 2013 for Disc 52. The photo is of a Tibetan woman. 

These are two cantatas both named "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland" ("Come now, Savior of the Gentiles"), which are BWV* 61 and 62, and also "Schwingt freudig each empor" ("Soar joyfully aloft to the sublime stars"), which is BVW 36. The notes indicate that all three used a famous Advent chorale, "Nun komm, der Heiden Heildand," Martin Luther's use of an Ambrosian Advent hymn 'Veni redemptor gentium."

Gardiner's notes indicate that these chorals would have been welcome for Bach's Leipzig and Weimar churches after "all those self-absorbed feelings of guilt, fear, damnation and hellfire that dominated the final Sundays of the Trinity season." Not only was Luther's hymn popular but Bach's festive music would have given worshipers a happy sense of "having at last turned a corner." 

Interestingly, in the BWV 61 cantata, Bach switches themes a little after the aria "Komm, Jesu" (with its repeated prayer "Komm"), from the praise of Christ's appearance to the presence of the Lord in the believer's heart.

Open up, my whole heart,

Jesus comes and enters in.

Though I be but dust and earth,

He shall not despise me,

but takes delight

to see that I become His dwelling.

Oh, how blessed shall I be!

In BWV 62, Christ becomes a "mighty hero" with the tone of the messianic psalms (and Isaiah's messianic poems) characterizing the texts (by Luther and an anonymous writer), with joy and praise concluding the cantata. In BWV 36, Bach sets the words "Even with subdued, weak voices God's majesty is revered" with a soft soprano and a muted violin. We also have the theme in this cantata of Christ as the bridegroom of the soul---and, of course, the joy analogous to a wedding. 

Pray the strings in Cythera

and let sweet Musica

sound out with naught but joy,

that I may with little Jesus,

this exquisite groom of mine,

pilgrimage in constant love.

*****

According to the CD notes, the English translations are by Richard Stokes

*If you're new to Bach: "BWV" means "Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis" ("Bach works catalogue"). It's the standard numbering and identification of Bach's works, according to themes and genres rather than chronology. 

First Sunday of Advent

On the Christian calendars, today is the first Sunday of the Advent season, the fourth Sunday before Christmas, and also the first day of the liturgical year. Advent, in turn is the Western Christian season of waiting for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus and anticipation of his future return.

Traditionally viewed, Advent is a time of longing for Christ. We symbolically anticipate his birth but look toward his second coming. Then at Christmastide, we celebrate and honor his birth as well as the revelation of his divinity (Epiphany, or Theophany in the eastern churches).

But in actuality, we expend our celebratory energies during Advent, culminating in the multiple Christmas Eve services. Afterward, many of us begin to take down and box up our holiday decorations, and many pastors (at least in my own circles) take well-deserved time-off during some portion of Christmastide. Right in the middle of Christmastide are New Years Eve/Day, a pair of secular holidays mixing festivities with resolutions for self-improvement.

Rather than feeling guilty about the way we observe Christ's birth, I wonder if we should simply recognize that our holidays have evolved to this point. Advent and Christmas are, already, a complex assortment of traditions: Christian, non-Christian religious, and secular/economic. The Christian liturgical year begins on the first Sunday of Advent with the anticipation of a big, festive season, and then we can move into our new year with a fresh sense of Christ, even if we're a little tired  and let-down for a while.

This prayer from St. Anselm’s Proslogion reflects the "seeking" quality of the Advent season.

"Insignificant [person], escape from your everyday business for a short while, hide for a moment from your restless thoughts. Break off from your cares and troubles and be less concerned about your tasks and labors. Make a little time for God and rest a while in him.

"Enter into your mind’s inner chamber. Shut out everything but God and whatever helps you to seek him; and when you have shut the door, look for him Speak now to God and say with your whole heart: I seek your face; your face, Lord, I desire.

"Lord, my God, teach my heart where and how to seek you, where and how to find you. Lord, if you are not here where shall I look for you in your absence? Yet if you are everywhere, why do I not see you when you are present? But surely you dwell in ‘light inaccessible.’ And where is light inaccessible? How shall I approach light inaccessible? Or who will lead me and bring me into it that I may see you there? And the, by what signs and under what forms shall I seek you? I have never seen you, Lord my God; I do not know your face.

"Lord most high, what shall this exile do, so far from you? What shall your servant do, tormented by love of you and cast so far from your face? He yearns to see you, and your face is too far form him. He desires to approach you, and your dwelling in unapproachable. He longs to find you, and does not know your dwelling place. He strives to look for you, and does not know your face.

"Lord, you are my God and you are my Lord, and I have never seen you. You have made me and remade me, and you have given me all the good things I possess, and still I do not know you. I was made in order to see you, and I have not yet done that for which I was made.

"Lord, how long will it be? How long, Lord, will you forget us? How long will you turn your face away from us? When will you look upon us and hear us? When will you enlighten our eyes and show us your face? When will you give yourself back to us?

"Look upon us, Lord, and hear us and enlighten us, show us your very self. Restore yourself to us that it may go well with us whose life is so evil without you. Take pity on our efforts and our striving toward you, for we have no strength apart from you.

"Teach me to seek you, and when I seek you show yourself to me, for I cannot seek you unless you teach me, nor can I find you unless you show yourself to me. Let me seek you in desiring you and desire you in seeking you, find you in loving you and love you in finding you."

From The Liturgy of the Hours: I, Advent Season, Christmas Season (New York: Catholic Book Publishing Corp, 1975), 184-185.

(A post from 2017)

Anti-Racism on Thanksgiving

Living in Flagstaff gave us insight into the Native American experience. Native Americans do consider this a day of mourning for the many millions who died since European emigration to North America, and for the fact that Covid is a crisis among many tribes. This is a helpful article, for later reading.

https://www.npr.org/2020/11/25/938237004/educators-and-native-leaders-recommend-bringing-anti-racism-to-the-thanksgiving-

All of Verdi's Operas in 2021

I like to use this blog as a record of year-long “projects,” often beginning on the first Sunday of Advent. This past year, I listened to all of Beethoven’s music on 90 CDs to honor the composer on his 250th birthday, December 16, 2020. 

A composer about whom I’ve always felt curious is Verdi. When I began in parish ministry in the early 1980s, in a very rural area of southeastern Illinois, I liked to listen to classical music and opera at my lonesome little parsonage. Anytime I listen to an opera, something in me connects back to that time when I was starting out in ministry. 

At the time, I already had the Messa da Requiem from seminary days. Then I found a used set of Rigoletto (with Sutherland, Pavarotti, and Milnes) at a favorite record store in Carbondale, IL. Later, I found a Toscanini-conducted Falstaff at in a mail-order catalogue. I also had Aida, and Otello with Jon Vickers in the title role. 

But I couldn’t quite get into Verdi. His operas lacked the chromatic interest and visceral force of Wagner’s. Benjamin Britten once said, “I am an arrogant and impatient listener; but in the case of a few composers, a very few, when I hear a work I do not like I am convinced it is my own fault. Verdi is one of these composers.” [1] I’m not an arrogant listener but--especially since I know little musicology--I respond to music on a purely emotional level and know that, sometimes, I’m still growing in musical taste. I was heartened by a 1983 Vanity Fair article by Walter Clemons who also wasn’t touched by Verdi’s music at first.[2]

Back in 2009, I found a good collection of Verdi arias to help me, “Essential Verdi, 40 of His Masterpieces” on the Decca label. What a wonderful set! As I listened to the two CDs (in my car), I kept grabbing the liner notes when I came to stop lights to see which opera aria I’d just heard. I finally appreciated Verdi’s gift for writing melodies. You hear it among old favorites like “La donna è mobile” and the “Aida” grand march but you also hear it in the lesser known dramas like “I masnadieri.” Clemons writes that he was convinced of Verdi’s greatness during a live performance of Othello’s aria “Ora e per sempre additio;” Othello despairs, yet “Verdi gives him back, in memory, the martial music of his days of glory” (p. 88). I found a similar moment in the “Ave Maria” from that same opera, sung on this set by Renee Fleming.

Famously, Verdi returned after "Otello" with one more, remarkable opera, “Falstaff,” only his second comic opera among nearly thirty. Verdi’s views of life were pessimistic but humanistic. As Osborne puts it, “In the Requiem … gentle resignation and joyful anticipation of an after-life were no part of his thoughts…. The intensity and compassion of his tragic view of the human condition are Shakespearian in stature: the prodigality of his technique deserves … to be called Mozartian” (p. 403). In this last opera, Verdi seems to have definitively joined his tragic view with a Mozartian comic spirit.

“Falstaff” ends:

Tutto nel mondo é burla.

L'uom é nato burlone,

La fede in cor gli ciurla,

Gli ciurla la ragione.

Tutti gabbati! Irride

L'un l'altro ogni mortal.

Ma ride ben chi ride

La risata final.

As translated by Vincent Sheean in the Toscanini recording: “The whole world is a jest; man was born a great jester, pushed this way and that by faith in his heart or by reason. All are cheated! Every mortal being laughs at every other one, but the best laugh of all is the one that comes last.”

I agree with some of that. We are all “pushed this way and that” and we’re all “cheated” of something. We're silly to think we can escape life's unfairness. Verdi suffered a terrible loss early in life, the death of his two children and first wife. Over time, he transformed his suffering and pessimism into wonderful theater and melody. Clemons writes that “Verdi’s long, fertile career can now be seen as remarkable in its steady progress and deepening insight as that of Dickens.” (p. 123) Yeats comes to mind as another artist who grew steadily and ended with depth and insight.

Here's one more quote from Clemons. “There is something clear and sunlit-square about Verdi’s music that makes it at first difficult to appreciate, if romantic mystery is what one looks for. The value of his honesty and clarity grows with acquaintance” (p. 123).

Partly in appreciation for that aforementioned time in parish ministry, and mostly to introduce myself to unfamiliar music, I decided to purchase the 2013 75-CD set of Verdi’s operas (and additional music), which I’ll listen to during the upcoming year. 

Some of Verdi’s operas are undisputed classics, some are rarely heard. 

• Oberto, 1839

• Un giorno di regno, 1840

• Nabucco, 1842

• I lombardi, 1843

• Ernani, 1844

• I due Foscari, 1844

• Giovanna d'Arco, 1845

• Alzira, 1845

• Attila, 1846

• Macbeth 1847

• I masnadieri, 1847

• Jerusalem, 1847

• Il corsaro, 1848

• La battaglia de Legnano,1849

• Luisa Miller, 1849

• Stiffelio, 1850

• Rigoletto, 1851

• Il trovatore, 1853

• La traviata, 1853

• Les vepres siciliennes, 1855

• Simon Boccanegra, 1857

• Un ballo in maschera, 1859

• La forza del destino, 1862

• Don Carlos, 1867

• Aida, 1871

• Otello, 1887

• Falstaff, 1893

Of these, Beth and I have seen Simon Boccanegra, at Santa Fe in 2004, and also Macbeth at Opera Theatre of St. Louis in 2016. 

(Some of this post is taken from my Sept. 16, 2009 and April 9, 2013 posts. In fact, I mentioned this CD set in the 2013 post, lamenting that I hadn’t yet purchased it. Well… now I have! LOL). 

Notes:

1. Charles Osborne, The Complete Operas of Verdi (New York: Knopf, 1979), p. 11.

2. Walter Clemons, “Viva Verdi! The Story of a Love Affair,” Vanity Fair, 46 (June 1983), 87-89, 122-123.

"Origin of Species," November 24, 1859.

One of the most important scientific books in history, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, was published on this day in 1859. Darwin used his researches since the 1830s to formulate a testable mechanism for biological development: in the struggle for existence, a variation in an organism that is conducive to survival and reproduction is passed to the organism's descendants. 

Various writers influenced Darwin: Malthus on population and resources, de Candolle on struggle, Lamarck on biological development, Lyell on geology, the anonymous Vestiges of Creation on species change, Humboldt on the interconnectedness of natural phenomena, and others.

If you know the story, Darwin had considered biological and geological origins since his 1830s world trip, but delayed publishing his hypotheses and was, in the 1850s, researching marine invertebrates when his friend, the pioneering geologist Charles Lyell, alerted him that Alfred Russel Wallace, doing his own research in the Malay islands, was developing a similar theory of species transmutation. Though ill, and bereaved about his young son's death, Darwin hurried to complete this book, and published several more books over the next twenty years about botany and species development. Wallace never seemed chagrined at all that Darwin established priority on theory, dedicated his own classic book The Malay Archipelago to Darwin, and contributed his own insights about natural selection. Darwin used his own fame and influence to help Wallace (who unlike Darwin was not of the aristocracy) gain his proper standing in the scientific community.

Subsequent researchers were able to incorporate Mendel's research in heredity with Darwin's principles. The first edition of 1250 copies of "Origin" sold out the same day. The first American edition appeared in January 1860. This is the Missouri Botanical Garden's copy of the first edition.

Beethoven 250: Lieder

As I explained in the January 24, 2020 post, I purchased the Naxos collection of Beethoven's complete works (90 CDs), which I plan to listen to this year, leading up to Beethoven's 250th birthday on December 16. 

Picking up where I left off in my October 20 post, I listened to the remaining CDs of the set, most of which are Beethoven’s Lieder. Would you have guessed that Beethoven was quite the songwriter? He wrote many songs!  

CD 78 

Irish Songs (WoO 152, 1810-13)

79 

Irish Songs (WoO 152, 1810-15)

80 

Irish Songs (WoO 154, 1810-15); Welsh Songs (WoO 155, 1810-15)

81 

Scottish Songs (WoO 156, 1810-12)

82 

4 English Songs (WoO 157, 1816/19); 29 Songs of Various Nationality (WoO 158, 1816-20) 

83 

25 Scottish Songs (Op. 108, 1810-20) 

84 

More Irish, Welsh, Scottish Songs, and songs of various nationalities 

85-88 

Lieder, Vol. 1-4

Here are the liner notes to a another collection of Beethoven’s complete songs. http://www.beethovenlieder.de/en/About-Beethovens-Lieder.php The author there writes: “ …. whilst for Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Wolf the composition of Lieder and songs was central to their work, Beethoven turned to Lied composition regularly but with less intensity than his successors.”

The author continues, “Anyone listening to his Lieder and songs in combination will realise that this rich bouquet of influential works, occasional compositions, love songs, humorous songs and serious pieces with religious or philosophical texts can offer music lovers an extraordinary amount of pleasure. Beethoven's Lied universe contains an abundance of musical beauties, and through their texts he offers today's listeners a variety of insights into the intellectual, imaginative and emotional world of the late 18th and early 19th century.” 

Read that whole essay for a good overview of Beethoven’s Lieder. The author adds, “An die ferne Geliebte (To the distant beloved) op. 98 is incontestably not only Beethoven's longest Lied composition but also the most significant, and for the performers the most demanding. Composed in April 1816 and highly esteemed even during the 19th century, it is considered the crowning glory of Beethoven's Lied output.” 

Here is another essay that I found concerning his songs: https://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-9295/ 

Like so much else on this set, I’ll have to return to the songs again in the future. This time listening to the 90 CDs on this set, I did go back to the 1808 “Choral Fantasy,” the theme of which I’ve always loved! We heard it performed by the Cleveland Orchestral at Blossom Music Center during the ‘00s. 

I also went back to listen to the “Missa Solemnis.” My first record of this piece was conducted by Kurt Masur, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, on a Eurodisc set that I purchased in the early 1980s. This author of this essay---https://coloradosymphony.org/Blog/the-greatest-piece-never-heard-why-beethovens-missa-solemnis-is-a-hidden-gem--comments that the Missa is a “hidden gem” that can be considered a companion piece to the Ninth Symphony but is much more seldom performed. 

Christ the King Sunday

Christ the King 

Jeremiah 36:1-8, 21-23, 27-28; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Luke 22:19-20. 

It’s Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the Christian liturgical calendar. The First Sunday of Advent next week will begin a new year!  

Unlike some of our Christian holidays, which have ancient roots, Christ the King Sunday was instituted less than a hundred years ago, by Pope Pius XI. Subsequently, many Protestant denominations have observed the Sunday, too. The day reminds us of Christ’s Lordship, not only in our personal and congregational lives but throughout the world and the universe! 

Jeremiah 31:31-34 is a well-known passage. In the future (Jeremiah’s future), God will write his law upon the hearts of the people. God will rule over his people, but with compassion, remembering their sins no more. The phrase “new covenant” connects us to the New Testament (“covenant” and “testament” mean the same thing in this context). Christ’s Lordship is a new, wonderful kingdom.   

In my own experience, it seemed like the folks who most appreciated the image of Jesus as King---as Authority----were themselves rigid and authoritative. It’s a comfortable way of envisioning Jesus---the fierce Jesus of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment----if you yourself are inclined to want to shape people up and push them out or around. Those of us are less authoritarian but who are still passionate about certain justice, religious, and political issues are also likely to see things in rigid, all or nothing ways. 

Thinking of Christ as king can potentially free us from a common human failing: the need to be right. When we're anxious about things, after all, we implicitly think we know best. But we can trust Christ to have authority over areas of our lives that cause concern, fear, and vexation. 

In our scripture from Jeremiah 36, Jehoiakim is king of Judah. He was the second-to-last king before the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and exiled the people of Judah. Jehoiakim was the son of the righteous king Josiah, who was eager to please the Lord, but in this family, the apple fell a long way from the tree. 

God instructed Jeremiah to write all his prophetic words onto a scroll and read them at the Lord’s house. If you leaf through the book of Jeremiah, you can appreciate the prophet’s daunting task of pronouncing God’s many warnings to the people. Because Jeremiah was under confinement, Jeremiah’s associate Baruch did the reading. Later, Baruch also read the scroll at the king’s house, to all the princes and scribes. 

Once the king himself heard the words, he took the scroll and calmly cut it up and burned the pieces in his fireplace.  

Remember that Jehoiakim is a king in the line of David! Needless to say, he thought he was right and had little regard for God’s Lordship, or for God’s warnings. His contempt reveals how far gone things had become in Judah. 

It’s a Christian truism to say that Jews expected a great Davidic king, but that Jesus is a different kind of king. Jesus’ followers realized that his kingship encompassed impossible things, like sin and death and all of creation.  

Our scripture from Luke reads: 

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

Normally, if a king dies, he is replaced by sometime else. Jesus' death, on the other hand, confirms and extends his authority and brings reconciliation with God, so that there is no more uncertainty and fear among his disciples. God's love is poured out for all!   

Jesus’ kingly role is a wonderful message for uncertain times such as these, giving us strength and confidence as we seek to do Christ's will, and to proclaim Christ's good news. 

Prayer: Lord Jesus, help us to look to you more humbly and completely. Give us grateful hearts. Give us renewed joy for the upcoming Advent season. Amen. 

 

(My devotion written for our church, to complement the sermon.)