Opening to Bach's 'St. Matthew Passion'

[ivalas1]

I've listened to this over a million times, and each time it gives me goose bumps!

[iPodTouchTutor]

HUrrr durr smart people c-c-c-c-combo breaker

[ArtsyMom70]

Thank you for posting such a meticulously rendered performance. Gardiner is sublime. I adore his conducting of the B Minor Mass, too.

[nadavnaz2]

@Anyone fighting over music practices regarding bach.

Whatever stirs your stew, whatever drives your wagon. Stop trying to prove your claims. It doesn't matter what bach meant, if it sounds better to you than listen to it. I think this sounds better than say, karajan doing this. But hell, if you like listening to big ol' huge romantic performances go ahead.

[AmosSDavies]

The slowness of a piece gives it more clearity and makes the singers to relax their voices a bit especially when singing high notes.

[wcbroccoli]

The "slowness of the piece" or the slowness of the performance? What makes you think the piece is slow? And how slow is slow? On YouTube you can find both slower and faster performances of this same movement, so ideas about the proper tempo vary.

You seem to be suggesting that all vocal pieces should begin slowly for the sake of clarity and to make the singers relax their voices so they can hit high notes.

Are there no vocal pieces that start out fast?

[gspaulsson]

Obviously you've never sung Bach. You try singing 16 straight bars of legato at a slow tempo and see how far you get before you run out of air, and what that does to the high notes. It's OK for the choir which can stagger-breathe, but its murder on the soloists.

[gantzmetallica]

that god be praised.

[voodooridah]

thank you for this wonderful music

[tintrumpet]

Beautiful. Thank you.

This is the version I know so to me it sounds right, just as some alternative versions sound right to others.

[tato4527]

no encuentro palabras para calificar la grandeza musical de esta y en general las obras de este gran genio, Johan Sebastian Bach...

[seanreillyireland]

Is the pace of Mengelberg's not the greatest?

[pinchaszukerm]

where can i find mengelberg's version?

[philateliceun]

Mengelberg's interpetation is to slow IMHO

[seanreillyireland]

Hello! I hadn't heard Richter until recently, that is slow and of course so much clearer.

But too many versions are obscenely fast and I don't like this version, though the conducter was a great one.

You see Mengelberg's was also live, in Rotterdam, I believe, in 1939... you can FEEL the impending doom through the airwaves. Its atmosphere alone is marvellous, awesome (before that word became so dumb)... truly awesome.

[philateliceun]

Yeah I guess it depends on what you are used to. I just can't stand the slow dragging interpetation of Mengelberg, it just doesn't work for me. Altough I have to say that the atmosphere in his interpetation is 10x more intense. But in my opinion Baroque has to be in a kind of upbeat tempo because of the rythmic constructs.

[seanreillyireland]

Do remember, my friend, that the vogue to play fast for authenticity is really only a theory that is taken as fact, no one really knows how Bach would've preferred it. Since it is utterly more beautiful and intense slow, and since he was the one who crafted all the glorious subtle moments (that can only be appreciated when played slow), I wouldn't want to bet against him wanting it that way, no matter what some musicologist from New York might say who's never composed anything of worth.

[philateliceun]

Yes I am aware of that. I have my own musical knowledge myself. I come from a family of musicians and I am studying composition right now (Bachelor degree). I wrote a couple of preludes and fugues myself and listen to alot of Classical music. You are right that the slow tempo of the piece sheds alot of light upon the piece. But considering the rest of the Passion I think it the more upbeat version fit's better. But I haven't heard the whole Passion from Mengelberg. Is the rest also slow?

[wcbroccoli]

This Passion is not an operatic melodrama. It was written to fit the Good Friday Vespers liturgy of Leipzig's main churches in Bach's era: Hymn Passion part 1 Hymn Sermon Passion part 2 Latin motet Collect prayer Bible verse Hymn Generally, only old people pine for the good old days of Mengelberg & Richter. "Fortunately, Bach's works as performed by Mengelberg and Ricther are a thing of the past." --Ton Koopman , from his essay "Aspects of Performance Practice".

[gspaulsson]

Very old people pine for the days of Bach in Leipzig. Personally, however, I think that original instruments is a fad and a fetish. Bach himself cared about harmony and counterpoint, not sonority, and if he could have heard his music on technically superior modern instruments he would have preferred it to squeaky woodwinds and - how did Sir Malcolm describe old harpsichords? - "skeletons copulating on a tin roof".

[wcbroccoli]

@gspaulsson Just listen to the scoring in this movement. You're clueless if you really believe Bach (or his contemporaries) didn't care about sonority.

HIP is hardly a passing "fad", It's been going on at least since the '60s (when you were still young) and only gets stronger, so much so that even so-called "modern" (really 19th century) instrument ensembles try to emulate HIP performances, abandoning

the well-intentioned but clueless practices of the likes of Mengelberg and Richter.

[wcbroccoli]

@gspaulsson The woodwinds in this period instrument performance are hardly "squeaky".

Apart for the way they're played, the main difference between sound of Barqoue & "modern" string instruments is the use of gut & wire-wound gut, instead of metal, strings. Metal strings didn't appear until after WW2 and were not immediately popular. The concertmaster of a major philharmonic continued to use gut strings until he retired in the 1960s. Metal lasts longer, but gut gives a better sound.

[wcbroccoli]

@gspaulsson Compared to Baroque winds, "modern" winds sound ugly, as do the harsh-sounding metal strings of "modern" violins.

I suppose you think continuo should be played on a modern piano instead of an old harpsichord. Or maybe you'd prefer the sonority of Lurch's 1960s-style harpsichord.

The only harpsichord sound "Sir Malcolm" knew were those unauthentic "Addams Family" metal frame instruments built in the 1960s to fit into big modern orchestras.

[gspaulsson]

Ach, what happened in the 60s (50s actually) is that the music died. It stopped being a living thing and passed into the hands of museum curators, who no longer cared about making it sound as beautiful and moving as possible but fussed about making it "authentic". Was Bach's imagination limited by the resources he happened to have in Leipzig, and often complained about? Handel could write in the grand baroque manner with King George behind him, Back was stuck in a provincial cow-town. (More)

[wcbroccoli]

@gspaulsson It was in the 60s, actually, when HIP recordings began to appear, most notably, the complete Bach cantatas project begun by Concentus Musicus. Bach was not stuck in a provincial "cowtown." The Weimar and Leipzig of his time were hardly cowtowns! The Leipzig was then a major book publishing center and home of Leipzig University, a major law school. Handel was writing music for the stage, Bach was not. You're comparing apples to oranges.

[wcbroccoli]

@gspaulsson The advent of the historically informed performance in the 60s is what began the slow, steady demise of the historically uninformed performance that is favored by some old people who long for the imagined good old days of their lost youth. But in another 10-20 years, they & their late 19th century aesthetics will be dead, buried & forgotten -- along with all the Richters, Mengelbergs & Sir Malcolms.

[wcbroccoli]

@gspaulsson Bach did not complain about the musical instruments. He complained about the steady withdrawal of the town council's financial support to hire church musicians. This withdrawal of support is something that had already begun in the time of Bach's predecessor, Johann Kuhnau. Bach had to increasingly rely on talented university student musicians who volunteered in hopes of gettting some kind of stipend for their services, something they used to get.

[wcbroccoli]

@gspaulsson On the contrary, with the advent of HIP, the music of Baroque came to life for the 1st time in our generation. Prior to the HIP, we had only of grotesque caricatures Baroque music shaped by the musical aesthetics of the late 19th & early 20th centuries.

[gspaulsson]

It's a great pity, I'm now living in Frankfurt/Oder, 2 hours from Leipzig, and if I'd thought of it sooner I could have booked tickets to hear the Gewandhaus perform the SMP in the Thomaskirche on Good Friday. Sold out for years ahead, I imagine. The great majority of the world's orchestras, including Gewandhaus, remain "historically uninformed", and the 60s were also when Gould's Goldbergs came out, not to mention when the Swingle Singers amused us by showing that you could do Bach to scat. ,,,

[wcbroccoli]

@gspaulsson The pity, for you, is that the days of the clueless, uninformed performance (and the clueless, uninformed listener) are as numbered as your own, for even modern instrument, unspecialized, "all periods" ensembles take into account the available info about Baroque performance practice. They strive to give historically informed performances even though they are stuck /w modern instruments! stuck simply because they must play all kinds of music.

[gspaulsson]

There has been a continuous tradition of great composers and performers since Bach, and for you to dismiss them collectively as "clueless" betrays your limited temporal & intellectual horizons. Around 1950, music fell into the hands of pedants. Fortunately, the sterile late-20th c. is over. We listen electronically now: I can crank up an "HI" version of the B- mass so "Et Resurrexit" hits me in the gut like Bach meant it to, even though he couldn't achieve it in his own day.

[wcbroccoli]

@gspaulsson Just because you like to 'crank up an "HI" version of the B- mass', doesn't prove it was intended for large forces.

[wcbroccoli]

@gspaulsson The cluelessness I refer to

is the ignorance of, or indifference to, early music performance practice. What has always been true is that nothing in music stays the same. There's no "continuous tradition" with early music performance practice. Music did not "fall into the hands of pedants"; the HIP movement continues to grow. Just look at the proliferation of HIP groups, recordings and live performances & the influence on modern instrument groups.

[gspaulsson]

The idea of "hearing it as Bach heard it" is misconceived: like all composers, Bach heard it in his head and then listened to the performers massacre it. Compared to London, Leipzig was a cowtown, & Thomaskirche didn't have the resources of King George, but baroque = grandeur = Bach. In the 19th c. came big concert halls and everything had to be scaled up. Now we can hear sound-engineered "authentic" performances on our 500w sound systems, cranked up as loud as we like. For the grandeur.

[wcbroccoli]

The musicians Bach worked with in Weimar, Coethen and other courts were top notch, as were the musicians he directed in the Leipzig Collegium Musicum. By contemporary accounts the Bachian Collegium Musicum was more famous than all the others. Bach was often called upon to compose & direct congratulatory music for noble patrons, including the Saxon Elector/King in Poland, who could match your "King George". Dresden, the Saxon capital was the most prestigious center of music in Germany.

[wcbroccoli]

@gspaulsson What is misconceived is your understanding of the goals of the historically informed performance. We can never reproduce what Bach, Handel, Mozart or their listeners heard because, for one thing, we don't have 18th century ears. What is also misconceived is your understanding the skill level of musicians Bach worked with in his career. You seem to think the only musicians who performed Bach's music in (or outside) Leipzig) were school boys. Volume is not grandeur.

[wcbroccoli]

@gspaulsson What's also misconceived is your notion that Bach is all about your idea of grandeur. Mendelssohn had a similar misconception when he performed SMP with some 100 singers. The original performance parts show that Bach assigned 1 singer to each part. Apparently this had nothing to do with what you would consider to be scarce resources in Leipzig, for 1-voice-per-part was also the practice in the Saxon Elector's church services in Dresden, the richest music center in Germany.

[gspaulsson]

Germany in those days was divided into tiny statelets and tiny towns: Weimar had a population of 5000 and Leipzig, the biggest centre he ever worked in, 30,000. So the talent pool was limited and his noble patrons were relatively poor. He typically had an orchestra and choir of 20 each to work with - no wonder he used small forces, But it is obvious from e.g. the B minor mass that his ideas were much grander than he had the performers to express.

[wcbroccoli]

@gspaulsson Contrary to what you suggest, the "talent pool" available to a royal or noble German court was not limited to the surrounding townspeople. E.g., most of Prince Leoplod's capelle was hired, not from tiny Anhalt, but from former members of the disbanded capelle of the Prussian royal court. And as you know, Leopold hired his most famous capellmeister, not from the Principality of Anhalt, but from the Duchy of Weimar, even before he'd obtained his dismissal from Weimar! ...

[wcbroccoli]

Just because you prefer large scale Bach performances doesn't prove Bach intended it that way. He composed for the size and skill of the available forces. E.g, in SMP, the performing parts show 1-voice-per-part, and the easier music is assigned to choir 2/orchestra 2. We know he had the necessary forces for this doouble chorus/double orchestra work because on Good Fridays he did not have to divide his best resources between 2 or more churches.

[wcbroccoli]

@gspaulsson Any of the 8 German Prince-Electors of the Holy Roman Empire was as wealthy as "King George" aka Elector of Hanover. As Electors they had the exclusive right to mine precious metals in their own lands & mint currency. Among these wealthy & powerful Prince-Electors was the Duke of Saxony aka King in Poland, to whom Bach dedicated the original B-Minor Mass (Kyrie-Gloria). Yet the Saxon court in Dresden, the richest musical center in all Germany, used small forces for church music.

[gspaulsson]

Mendelssohn then had the problem of doing Bach in 19th century concert halls, where large forces were required. Bach being infinitely flexible, I'm sure he did quite well. There is a recording on youtube of Joachim playing the G minor solo sonata - listen to it, you will gain some respect for those old performers. Of course, being a child, you think of 50 years ago as the stone age, when the musical world was cluttered with idiots like Rubinstein, Lipatti, or heaven forbid, Toscanini.

[wcbroccoli]

@gspaulsson If, as you say, Bach is infinitely flexible, then all Bach performances should sound "quite well,", but we know that is far from true. By contemporary reports, Mendelssohn's 1st SMP was an immediate success, but that does not prove we should like it done /w 150+ singers, clarinets & fortepiano. Felix, himself fairly clueless about Baroque performance practices. was playing to an even more clueless audience and indulgng the musical aesthetics of his day.

[wcbroccoli]

@gspaulsson For early music, 50+ years ago was more like the Dark Ages. It was an age of ignorance of early music performance practices, supersitions about the lack of performance markings,

and the awful legacy of late 19th c. romanticism. It was an age that produced vulgarities like Pleyel harpsichords, Stokowski's monstrous orchestrations of Bach, and sentimental orchestrations of Pachelbel's "Canon & Gigue for 3 violins & continuo" that render it barely recognizable as a 17th c. work.

[wcbroccoli]

Mengleberg's Bach might be one of the slowest and biggest, and perhaps you equate slowness and size with greatness and monumentality. But this work was never intended to sound monumental. The original performing parts indicate just 1 voice per part.

[seanreillyireland]

i take what you saying, but no, i don't equate as you say. i've heard versions however, including the one above, which go by so damned fast, that you miss out on the exquisite and utter beauty of the music to a large degree... its like hearing it at 75rpm... i'm not into bombast without substance. i get your point however.

[32Styx]

I believe that this is Gardiner's mid-80's recording of the Passion. At that time he also recorded the b minor mass and St. John's Passion. In my opinion he has some of the best singers he has ever had such as Michael Chance, who left him (at his advice) to pursue a solo career, although he still made some recordings with him later on. However, the Monteverdi Choir has remained excellent through the years.

[Masamita]

genius

[scarred123]

masterpiece