BWV 21 [Coro] Das Lamm, das erwürget ist

[ChasingHim84]

Was ist das Lamm????? Erwürget?!????? Ich glaube eher auferstanden! :-)

[AML2000]

This cantata was actually written in 1713 for the most part, and believed to have been written as an audition cantata for a job in Hanover. It was revised several times later, and the last two pieces, including this chorus, were added later. They are both in a distinctly different style than the rest of the cantata, which otherwise is typical of his very early vocal works

[dis0guise]

Good performance. I can't decide whether I like this final chorus better than the not-quite-final one of Messiah (on the same text only in English, and so remarkably similar that more than one scholar has speculated on whether one composer might have copied the basic ideas from the other -- last I heard, the consensus is that nobody stole anything). Usually I give this one the edge.

[dis0guise]

Also, this performance is relatively slow in tempo compared with some.... but it works. It has an unhurried feel. I can't decide whether I prefer it this way: both tempi have some advantages. Definitely a cantata to own more than one recording of.

[wcbroccoli]

BWV 21 was composed in 1714.

Messiah was composed in 1741. Much of it is derived from Italian language duets Haendel had composed a few months before, other works by Haendel and works by others, including Telemann. E.g, the 4-part chorus "For unto a child is born" is based on the Haendel's duet "No, di voi non vo fidarmi" ("No, I will not trust you") which explains the peculiar accent on the word "For". "And he shall purify" derives from Telemann.

Parody was a regular 18th c. practice.

[markiangooley]

Yeah, everyone one copied tunes, and Handel was no more guilty than most, even if one wants to make a big deal of it. And mostly he re-used his own tunes. A lot of tunes from his days in Italy got re-used later (e. g., bits of La Resurrezione in Water Music).

[wcbroccoli]

Handel also borrowed from Telemann.

Busy 18th church cantors cobbled together passion music from passions of various composers.

Mozart's contemporaries routinely arranged his music w/o his permission.

There were no laws against it.

Why should any guilt attach?

Obsession with "originality" is a 19th c. notion

that culminated in 20th c. copyright hysteria.

"Guilt" over copying is a modern notion cultivated in today's schools.

[markiangooley]

On thinking about it, I have to agree: "Guilt" is an anachronism and shouldn't belong in this discussion. And even with a modern point of view, there's always T. S. Eliot's opinion: "Mediocrity invents. Genius steals."

[wcbroccoli]

I might add that some of Mozart's early piano concertos are actually arrangements of sonatas by one of Bach's sons. Beethoven used themes by Mozart. Mendelssohn's Reformation Symphony uses the isorythmic version of a hymn by Martin Luther. And church pieces since medieval times have routinely used plainsongs, popular

songs or hymn tunes as a cantus firmus.

Taverner's famous "In nomine" setting spawned a genre of compositions by that name.