Added: 5 years ago
From: Bacholoji
Views: 310,115
Sort by time | Sort by thread (beta)

Link to this comment:

Share to:

All Comments (298)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • Sublime!

  • Comment removed

  • wachet auf...não dá para 'não' despertar com uma glória musical como é esse coral...

  • polyphonic?

  • I suppose this is one of the best performances of anything, ever. Simply uneblievable.

  • Wunderbar! Genauso gehört diese Kantate interpretiert. Alles wie es sein muss. Wie immer bei Herrn Koopmann. Kompliment!!

  • Ja so ist es gemeint - das Tempo sitzt - Good work and the rhythm is brilliant - not slow not fast - this is joy in my ears Geehrter Herrr Koopman vielen Dank - best regards from Leipzig JSB Cantor

  • The temperment is different, no? It sounds like A 415.

  • A good bach piece is like a well oiled machine.

  • amazing!

    

  • I wonder why reactions are not registering right now? Can't get it to work.

  • Rather, I mean thumbs up/thumbs down is not working.

  • the "drop" long before dubstep, hahahah. this is just ridiculously good

  • Comment removed

  • @5050zulu1 Bach's music invites infinite variety of experience. Consider, though, that the ladies at the beginning are singing a relatively archaic choral tune (1599) that serves as the point of departure for this chorale prelude; it would have been sung by pre-pubescent choirboys in Bach's time. The guy in between the ladies is singing the florid free counterpoint inspired by the choral, like a bee buzzing around a flower. All this is lovely to me. Only your assumption: "still=cold" disturbs.

  • Comment removed

  • I like her cleavage.

  • I should use this as alarm clock xD

    Bach doesn't cease to amaze me! He has what in my opinion are a composer's finest gifts: sincerity and perfect structures.

  • Bach was a taskmaster who tolerated only letter perfect performance. After all he wrote music for every Sunday in the church year plus oratorios concertos and toccata and fugue etc. This is Germanic work ethic plus detail dedication with no compromises It dwarfs the works of most of his contemporaries and incredibly achieves a plane of music unique to himself Astounds the listener!!!

  • @ken38urb When you say "wrote music for every Sunday", you must be referring to his activities in Leipzig. I doubt there was time to prepare the kind of "letter perfect performance" you've come to expect in concerts and recordings. He had no music composition/notation software or copy machine. Every part had to be copied out by hand before there could even be a rehearsal. He had other responsibilities besides preparing for a Sunday performance. And he had many private students.

  • Bach is so great!

  • @5050zulu1 Actually the swaying doesn't bother me that much--just looks a little odd in this highly disciplined group.Maybe more often seen in a small local church choir. But for you to call the woman next to her an ice maiden seemed mean and unfair--to me she has the look of intense concentration,not too different from the rest of the choir. Looks like many agree with me--a surprising number of thumbs up in a short time. Btw, what would Bach great the disciplinarian have thought? Sort of funny.

  • Lovely rendition of this great work of musical art by Bach. 2011 represents 150th year of friendship between Germany and Japan and quite a few cultural exchanges are taking place including music. Danke schoen! eijiro odagiri, Japanese music lover

  • Such is the power of Bach that he makes that middle lady physically fall in love with him 250 years after he died ...

  • I want to hear the blonde in the blue dress and the first chair violinist performing "Morgen" (R. Strauss)!!!!!!

  • Swag

  • Koopman le grand...! Une référence.

  • I think I just died!!!

  • I want to go to one of this concerts!

  • .. after fukushima daiichi I i wish this could hear the hole world!

  • .. look on her face, thats it, why this is one of the best performance from BWV 140such a good

  • .. yess, she is absolute beautifull!

  • @railtrailer44 excactly: its the music that comes out which is important

  • Comment removed

  • @railtrailer44 : Maybe "the blonde in the blue dress" has an operating vibrator inserted?!

  • @SordidGuy Actually laughed out loud.

  • I listened to this Cantata 140 and other great Bach music sung by Tokyo Baroch Scholars in Tokyo recently. Great work of musical art by Bach. So great that even Softbank Mobile is using this as the background music for their new TV Commercial. Eiji Tanaka

  • hey i like this

  • une vrai merveille depuis l age de 4 ans que je l ecoute ca reveille l interet religieux isabel.

  • Small people(Bach-Beethoven-malher-H­itler) with giant works or plans !!

  • Comment removed

  • German were small people way back in time; composing giant ambitious works, and the reaction was that, small other people were not understanding anything from composers like Bach or Beethoven, because they were kind of genius with different ideas at their time, there was Hitler too who were small with giant plans to change the world. It was like steps for themselves to look greater in their small shapes !!

  • @Sylvain894 Great! What a cute thing, having to cope with a nazi while listening to this. Well, I suppose Hitler would have had Mahler burnt, because he was a jew. History exists for something, dude, if only for not watching idiots wearing the SS uniform again.

  • @zariguella1930 Well; i'm not a Hitler supporter, but i readed about him; there were so plenty of contradictions during the war, and Mr Hitler wasn't a man of indecision, his ideas were clear, excepted maybe at his last days on earth ! Burning Malher would be so awful, and nazy people were not idiots to condamn such musical genius that he was; cause everybody has a musical curiosity genius to discover even the worst composers ! So, they would not burn Mr Malher, but maybe only forbid his works!!

  • @Sylvain894 Well, there's so many thing I would like to ask you about, for example, what exactly did you read, because the verb itself doesn't give much weight to any of your arguments. It's so nice, so the thing is tha forbiding the works of people like Mahler, Schoenberg or Brüch it's OK, as long as you don't actually kill them phisically. But, at the end, only one thing: what does that genocidal brute have to do with the great composers and the wonderful piece posted here?

  • @zariguella1930 First i'm a guy from French culture, not a fighter, i try to explain in English i have learned by myself so it's like you if you try to explain something totally in French; i was remarking that these people had been great musical interests, even Hitler ! You're probably take me for another guy !! Expressing in English my point of view ain't easy and may be deconvenient for some that assimilate it better !

  • @zariguella1930 First i'm a guy from French culture, not a fighter, i try to explain in English i have learned by myself so it's like you if you try to explain something totally in French; i was remarking that these people had been great musical interests, even Hitler ! You're probably take me for another guy !! Expressing in English my point of view ain't easy and may be inconvenient for some that assimilate it better !

  • @Sylvain894 Maybe you just wanted a fight.

  • @zariguella1930 Probably you had troubles with these words not expressed right !

  • This remains my favorite rendition of my favorite movement of my favorite cantata. Now ... that said...notice the two gentlemen in the chorus on the ends of the rows on the right side (from audience perspective). What do you bet they are brothers? Maybe even twins! Watch 3:21 - 3:28

  • @dekr899 Could be.

    

  • The alto phrase "aleluia" beguinning at 4:26 is possibly one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. It's unexpected, though seeming at the same time the only logical development there could be... hail the genius Bach!

  • bellissimo ! Ton is the best

  • Love the period instruments

  • @Altoclarinets Me too. Outrageously good sound. And I love watching the first violinist. If I were learning baroque violin I would want her for a teacher.

  • You can find the lyrics in German and English in The Cantatas of J.S. Bach by Alfrerd Durr, Oxford U Press!

  • Was für ein wunderbares Stück Musik! Ich konnte mit diesen immer wieder zu hören. Bravo! Um Koopman und seine wunderbaren Chor / Musiker.

  • Can someone please explain why parts 2 and 5 are missing from the set?

    How can I find them?

  • I'm in heaven!

  • Beautifull! I think, that there is no progress with historical practice performance since this years, when Koopman, Gardiner and others recerded their main things. We canonly learn from them in my opinion.

  • Wonderful performance! Very stylistic. I love the period instruments; the player of the natural horn is particularly impressive. Excellent choir and orchestra. Koopman is top-notch!

  • Heavenly music, heavenly singing!

  • @luciesneep Not so.

  • There something about Bach's music that makes me feel as if I known his music since forever, or maybe its a fulfillment of my life, I had to listen to his music, I just had to.

    :D

  • koopman has a perfect undrestanding of Bach´s phrasing. As an organist, he has a similar acoustic mind setup. Wonderful version.

  • @RumoAoSul I agree. Every time I hear a Koopman Version of Bach I tend to sit up and take notice moreso than some of the other recordings. I love to compare and contrast.

  • I just looked the word alto up in the Oxford Concise English dictionary. It says in part: "Highest male voice." The word alto is now commonly used in place of the more correct contralto which is the female equivalent singing in the same range as the male alto.

    Given that English's greatest strength is its ability to adopt, adapt and morph constantly without a group of academics dictating what it should be; I accept that 'alto' is fine for SATB choirs but not where men take the alto part.

  • Comment removed

  • Are men singing the alto part?

    Hehehe. Hilarious.

    But beautiful music.

  • @cluttj Alto is a male voice. The female version is the contralto. I used to sing alto regularly in choirs recreating music like Handel's Messial sympathetic to how it was originally presented with Trebles, Altos etc.  I now sing in a male choir and frequently need to sing in my falsetto or 'alto' voice.

  • @donaldrose: Alto is a **female** voice (or wiki says: "alto" describes the second highest voice part in a four-part chorus. ). We're singing this masterpiece right now. You can see this at the beginning of the fugue. This part is for the lower womens.

    Never mind ;o).

    But I like this presentation.

  • @TVBurundi A friend of mine is a very fine (and famous) English countertenor. He also refers to himself and the parts he sings as "alto." In scores of the renaissance and even later, the part in that range was often labeled "altus"--no always "tenor." We, too, may be flexible in how we apply the term.

  • @donaldrose Ahhhh cool beans, I get it. I probably should know all this due to me being a music student and all...

    Wouldn't it be hard to sing that high like all the time?!

  • @cluttj Hilarious? Actually, common, and in keeping with the historical performance of this music, which would have had boys on the highest part as well.

  • Muzyka Bacha zawsze była ostoją, tym obszarem wolności,

    do którego nigdy nie miały dostępu żadne szubienice ni łańcuchy.

    Wobec Jego muzyki wszelki terror i tyrania jest bezilna.

    Bowiem Myuzyka Bacha: z ducha jest dla ducha.

    Jak bardzo dzisiaj znowu potrzebuję Tej Muzyki...

  • Like Koopman and his experiment, but this opening movement is a bit disappointing as far as the singers go lacking the force I usually here from his forces. The orchestra is stunning and the chorus (in all of the later movements) beautifully engaged - but just too soft focused in much of this (notably the tenors who melt my heart in "Zion hört die wächter singen" - breathtaking). Still, an overall beautiful performance of one of Bach's most beautiful moments.

  • Yah! Wash it off!!

    just kidding, beautiful actually and will be the wedding march for me i think. i had wanted to incorporate Bach.

  • @labbitch308

    Yeah! Using BMV 140 as wedding march buddies! Mine's in June.

  • Comment removed

  • On most You Tube vocal music videos, extant sniping comprises assessments of voices, usually sopranos. With Bach, battle royales concern the virtues of different conductors.

  • Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme Der Wächter sehr hoch auf der Zinne, Wach auf, du Stadt Jerusalem! Mitternacht heißt diese Stunde; Sie rufen uns mit hellem Munde: Wo seid ihr klugen Jungfrauen? Wohl auf, der Bräutgam kömmt; Steht auf, die Lampen nehmt! Alleluja! Macht euch bereit Zu der Hochzeit, Ihr müsset ihm entgegen gehn!
  • Comment removed

  • @5050zulu1 aqui não é lugar de pensar em sexo.

  • Comment removed

  • @5050zulu1 To her right?

  • Comment removed

  • @Nil0One to her left=to the right of her from our perspective

  • @5050zulu1

    One reason for the motionless is for absolute precision control over the airway and enunciation.

    Bach himself wrote of the need for vocalists to remain still and 'in perfection', not only for good sound production, but also in humble service to the music.

    Unfortunately, many performers (though not that lady in blue) seem to feel the need to resemble a treetop in a hurricane, waving this way and that, as though the performance were about them and not the music.

  • @treimers95 I agree. Much like classic pianists and keeping their backs straight and having their arms and wrists in proper position- unlike the swaying "emotional" style of playing we often see on tv. Unless you're Liberace, of course, then you would be the exception. And he's the only exception because he's in a league of his own.

  • @treimers95 Well said!!!

  • @treimers95 Here, here! Well-put indeed.Personally, I loathe that over-gesticulation and I'm glad there are other who feel the same way. Cheers!

  • @5050zulu1

    Yes, but joy is not necessarily noticeable. I know that when I sing Bach, my face is almost unchanged, however my soul is in deep swirl of emotions, joy, gratitude, admiration etc.

  • @5050zulu1 you could call Miles Davis the same because he was almost always serious playing jazz, he looked harsh and focused but it didn't mean he wasn't playing with soul, did it?

  • @redbull101991 I would'nt know option 1 watch Miles Davis . option 2 watch paint dry = Thats nice paint

  • I really like it more slowly, although this performance is more than awesome!.

  • Comment removed

  • Comment removed

  • bach used as theme of this music the chaconne by ferdinand fischer :)

  • Thie first time I ever heard this I was 13 years old and I have loved it ever since.  It was performed by All High School students.

  • really great

  • Bach--God's loving servant

  • I'd like this, if I haven't heard Richter's rendition first. Sorry, but Ton Koopman and his orchestra may be good on the technical level, but just that.

  • Hopefully this is my final response, but the First Chair Violinist is SUCH A JOY to watch! Love her!!!!!!

  • @SordidGuy That's why her name is Faultless (Margaret) ,,,

  • Nie znalazłam lepszej wersji.

    Wykonanie orkiestry i śpiewaków z "najwyższej półki".

    Kilku tenorków wspomaga alcistkę i nawet dobrze im idzie.

    Prawdziwa uczta dla ucha!

    Pozdrawiam Miłośników Dzieł J.S.Bacha.

  • I love this tempo and everything else about this fine choir and orchestra!

    This my favourite Bach cantata and I had to study this great work for GCE in Music - a long time ago and I was captivated by the rhythm pulsing through it and, of course, Bach's wonderful writing!

    Many thanks for uploading this magnificent version

  • being a music major, I had to take listening quizzes in my music history courses. I had to memorize every bloody detail about each song and spout it back on a test just by listening to about 30 seconds of it. I hated it, but now i'm thankful because it exposed me to great music like this :) love it

  • Sorry to bother you, but I had to comment after reading your post. I was a music theory major at Furman University (WAY BACK IN THE MIDDLE AGES - The 1980's) and experienced much the same predicament (only it was Ravel's Bolero). TALK ABOUT DIFFICULT!!! We could only listen to the distant recording and had to name every instrument as they appeard ed and in combination......I'm surprised I passed!!!!!! Thanks for being a fellow TRUE music lover!

  • The middle ages... haha that means i was born in the late middle ages. :)

  • Cute response! I like you!!!

  • well thanks :) lol

  • @SordidGuy If you were a music major at FU in the middle ages, then I was a music major there during the dark ages (mid 70's). How I suffered through some of it, too! But thank goodness for the tough ones... like Charlotte Smith, for example. She whupped me every chance she got (and I gave her plenty of chances). If it hadn't been for her... and Bob Chesebro... I'd not have amounted to much, I suspect.

  • Charlotte was my idol and one of the main reasons I opted for Music Theory as a major. She ALWAYS gave me the most difficult assignments (I was her "chosen one" for two years, I guess). OH HOW I MISS THOSE DAYS!!!!!! Thanks for helping bring back the wonderful memories......Michael

  • She literally whupped u?

  • This is absolutely perfect on every level (and wonderfully authentic). The vocal trills by the sopranos are simply astounding!!!!!! THANK YOU for posting this, Bacholoji......

  • I love it. One need not scream in order to awaken the world.

  • I like the tempo but when you sing Wauchet auf you should mean it. Here it sounds like a lullaby.

  • wspaniale....to za mało powiedziane:)Genialne tempo, brzmienie, oparcie, chór -lekkość , miękkość i ekspresja w jednym- to coś więcej niż muzyka, a może to jest właśnie MUZYKA?

  • The tempo - what a difference compared to the Munich rendition! This one is, well, less breath-taking.

  • As nice a performance as I've EVER heard and I've performed this one many times. (On oboe.)

    The tempo is simply perfect.

  • A en faire une maladie tellement c'est beau, merci Bach, merci d'être née

  • Bien que vous ayez écrit "née"pour Bach,entièrement d'accord avec vous,pour moi c'est le seul vaccin possible en ces temps apocalyptiques.

  • Vous avez raison, je m'excuse, mon OpenOffice me ridiculise souvent, merci de votre commentaire.

  • @Siberiaeterna et le vaccin H1N1 ? que dois-je en penser?

  • na da wird sich doch a fescher bursch finden..;))..

  • wunderbar

  • WHAT a brilliant choir! And orchestra, etc. The tenor at 4:26 is fantastic. His 16th note runs are so precise! I wish I knew more about this choir: who are they and where are they from?

  • @Zackiesmomma Actually, these guys sing alto, I've sung this Cantata before (I'm a tenor) and this is the alto part. Bach often used male altos, as it was common practice in those days.

  • That is really phenomenal singing. I miss being in choirs. But I did find out about this choir... based in Amsterdam and it's a Baroque orchestra and choir, which I'd love to go see. Well thank you for the information on Bach using males as altos. I'm ashamed! Bach and Handel are my favorites! One would have to have studied Bach's choral writing more or be a student of the Baroque to know that? Or I just slept through that day in Music History class.

  • This is the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir directed by Ton Koopman. They've recorded all of Bach's Cantatas in a wondefull series of 22 CD-albums. I highly recommend them, and have collected all but one of the albums over the past years. I;ve witnessed some of the live performances as well. Awesome.

  • Thank you so much. They are just wonderful. What a great experience that you were able to go to some live performances too.

  • beautiful

  • hervorragender Chor

  • Has any Baroque composer created such beautiful, deep, spiritual music ?

    Yet they say Bach has not made a revolution in music !

  • buxtehude for sure did

  • can you give an example ?

  • He is the best!

  • Well!!! And the main reason for Bach to compose religious music in Leipzig is because he worked for the church. It is not rdt425?... And if Bach worked for the Devil? What music did?... Diabolical music.

  • 'The aim and final reason of all music should be nothing else but the glory of God and the refreshment of the spirit.'

    JS Bach

    Beatifully rendered!! A masterpiece indeed!

  • @elieltanr

    I agree. But I wish Bach had added to exclude the established church. Faith would be more beautiful without religious self centered authority.

  • @silverbud Much better that Bach was orthodox and set a good example.

  • @silverbud

    i dont really understand your statement. would you care to elaborate?

  • @elieltanr Anne Rice? Or a fan of?

  • @ropeperson nope, i've not read her books at all. my apologies

  • @elieltanr soli Deo Gloria

  • @elieltanr , and I can't think of any other musician who has sanctified God in the way that JS Bach did.

  • @koyunbaba73 the only other person who can come close to what bach did, is another german composer, GF Handel. Bach is second to none. To God be the glory!

  • Comment removed

  • Could we even imagine the Great Bach's without GOD? I DON'T THINK SO. His personal religious history had made him a great musician, I believe.

  • all of his songs he wrote for God

  • Why is it so big of a concept to think maybe he drew his inspiration from the bible? or that his religious background would have an effect on what he would write? If Bach was not religious then we wouldn't have much of his great works. No St. Matthew Passion! That would be terrible. I believe Bach wrote with religiosity. I mean if you love your mother couldn't you draw inspiration from your love for her and write an amazing piece for her? Plus lol organs were just so common outside of a church!

  • Wow....short of women altos....!!!!

  • But the important thing is listening your music. I hear it every day in my 800 Cds of Bach. I am sorry that the death to stop. If someone promised me that I would rise every ten years to listen to their Passions, their Cantatas, their Masses, their music... I did not mind dying now.

  • ...and his works just leave from mediocrity.Other, however, without any hint of religion, and sacred music reached the sublime, Like Beethoven in his Missa Solemnis and even Mozart, who had litle believer, with his Mass in C Minor and Requiem.

    Bach had the defect of being too modest. Compared his profession to a shoemaker. Even humbled mediocre composer like Haendel. I forgave him and ask. Why Bach had to believe in a supreme God? Or is it the true God. For me it is... and GOD bless me.

  • ....my theory. Prove you yours.

    But seriously what you said, and many say, he could not write the music to write without being very religious. Sorry, but this is just utter nonsense and, also, an insult to the memory of Bach.

    Bach wrote his music with his talent, his art, his genius.

    No composer writes music with his religiosity. This mean that the more religious the best music he did. Impossible. The history of music is full os composers much more religious, some with dose of fanaticism.....

  • Talking about the more or less religious Bach adiditio to being subject to a number of books or is like discussing the sex of angels. However, a close study of his life and his work can lead us to draw some conclusions. It is what I have done at least the last twenty years.

    The religiosity of Bach was like that of his contemporaries, neither more nor less. Thei find it too religious like you and not the nom-religious like me. Every one who thinks as you like, but prove it. I think prove ....

  • Again, my two cent's worth. The blonde lady in the blue gown is an ABSOULTE joy to watch!!! A true musician can tell (without a doubt) that she relishes the heavenly music and truely interprets her voice and feelings into the MAGNIFICENT piece!!!!!!

  • All glory to the Lord of Lord and King of Kings for whom Bach wrote all of his glorious music.

  • Love the music for what it is. Not for what you want it to be.

  • Well, Bach was a very religious man, who did attribute his talent directly to God, to whom he also dedicated his music. I am myself an atheist, but I love the devotion you can hear in Bach's music. Religious people may say "all glory to the Lord and King of Kings", but I say all glory to Bach.