David Dalle
Thursday May 25th, 2023 with David Dalle
In Leipzig Part II

As this show is broadcast, I am still attending the Mahlerfest in Leipzig, Germany. Unlike Mahler, who only resided in Leipzig for a couple years, Leipzig's most famous musical inhabitant, Johann Sebastien Bach, lived there for over half his adult life, from 1723 until his death in 1750. Bach was appointed Thomaskantor, the director of church music, in Leipzig, after the death of Johann Kuhnau. Unimaginable to us today, Bach was not the first choice for the position. It was first offered to Georg Philipp Telemann, who declined the position! Bach composed many of his greatest works in Leipzig, including the Mass in b minor, his two Passions, most of his cantata cycles, his first publications of organ music, the second volume of the Well Tempered Klavier, the Goldberg variations and the Art of the Fugue, as well as many other compositions. The St. Thomas church where he worked, performed, and is buried is still located in the centre of Leipzig and I saw an organ recital there with Bach and other composers earlier this week. So we will hear a lot of Leipzig Bach today. For the first hour, we are going to focus on Bach the master of the organ. He started composing the collection of organ music entitled "Clavier-Ubung III" in 1736 and it was published in 1739. Its unassuming title, translating into "Keyboard Practice", belies the incredible richness, complexity, and variety of the pieces. The collection is bookended by the famous Prelude & Fugue in E flat major, with the prelude at the start and the fugue at the end. The largest part of Bach's musical output are his church cantatas. Almost 200 of them survive, and the majority were composed in his first few years in Leipzig, when he composed several Cantata cycles for the Lutheran liturgical year, often composing a cantata every week. Despite Bach's cantatas being the largest part of his repertoire, they are actually the least known overall. This is a shame as they encompass every aspect of Bach the composer. The sheer diversity of the cantatas is staggering. We are going to hear BWV 146 "Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal/We must pass through great sadness". It is a large cantata in eight movements composed in Leipzig either in 1726 or 1728. It was written for four soloists, a full choir, woodwinds, strings, and has a prominent solo organ part, opening with a sinfonia for organ. The sinfonia is based on his keyboard concerto in d minor. The first chorus, which follows the sinfonia, is based on the adagio from the concerto with the chorus superimposed over the anguished bass line. It is intended for the fourth Sunday of Easter in the Lutheran calendar, and the mood ranges from depicting the great suffering in the world to the joyful hope for a better heavenly life. We will bookend the cantata with the Prelude & Fugue from the Claver-Ubung III. I admit the key transition from E flat major to d minor is not extremely smooth and one Bach would not make, but these are the pieces I want to hear! One last point I would like to make about Bach before we get to the music: I have often bumped up against the cliché that Bach is an academic, mathematical, intellectual composer, and that is all bunk. The vast majority of Bach's music is vocal music with texts, his cantatas, passions, mass, motets and other works. So the emotional content and context Bach was setting music to is very clear. His music explores extreme emotions, searing drama, enormous suffering, exultant joy, and everything in between. Yes Bach had a great love for numerology, and his music is brilliantly intricate and complex, but it is all in service of expressing and depicting the drama of human existence.