The Gigue is Down

At the start of the Choir’s year of Passion rehearsals in January, 2006, I made the following broad statement: “Everything Bach composed was either a dance or a chorale (hymn) or both.” (Ed: All truths are generalizations, including this.)

About two months ago in the New York Times appeared a review of the ‘Carnegie Hall Choral Workshop’ the most recent of a series founded in 1990 by Robert Shaw and continuing. The Bach ‘St. Matthew Passion’ was the subject of January’s five-day session, directed by the world-renowned conductor and Bach specialist Helmut Rilling. The 76 participants, selected by grilling audition, are choral professionals and talented amateurs. In his New York Times review James Ostereich quotes Maestro Rilling as stating something to the effect that Bach always composed dances. OK so far. His example in the St. Matthew is the final bass aria “Mach dich, mein Herze, rein” which he says is a gigue. What!! A jig?? A giga?!?!? In whatever language, it’s a jig. You know, right after the soloist’s introductory recitativo, “At evening, hour of rest . . . ends the Savior’s pain . . comes the dove again with an olive leaf in her bill . . . so cool and still . . . His body rests in peace . . . O precious thought to ponder.!” Then Mary Mother, Mary Magdalene, Joseph of Arimithea, and assorted Roman soldiers jump up and down in a spirited jig around the bottom of the cross with Jesus hanging limp above them, while the bass sings his aria, “Make thyself pure, my heart, where I will entomb Jesus . . . there to sweet rest betake Thee.”
It is a dance, no question; it’s a pastorale, a lullaby. In all truth, it’s the most peaceful moment in the entire Passion which by now has known three hours of lament, bloodshed and breast-beating anguish. Hello?

Mel, Meet Bach

The sequence of events leading up to the Crucifixion is contained in its entirety in the 26th and 27th Chapters of Matthew. Bach is often called ‘The Fifth Evangelist’ and his oeuvre ‘The Fifth Gospel.’ He has informed the Matthew text with his music, but also has added text, which transforms Matthew’s gospel, for both the congregations of 1727 and 2007. Bach’s early religious training was in Lutheran orthodoxy, meaning uptight, authoritarian and dogmatic. Later on, Pietism, a more gracious, inclusive, humane practice, had a greater influence on him- witness the serious battles he had with his boss at Leipzig, Pastor Ernesti. It is clear that Mel Gibson is not his librettist when, for example, one hears the following text quotes in the Passion: “how guilty we;” and “’tis I who should endure the pains of Hell.” If Luther was capable of anti-Semitic expression in his later years, Bach is the opposite. He is a humanitarian to the extreme, a romantic, mystical and metaphysical to the point of giving only God credit for everything he wrote.

Coming Home

Coming home. A main reason for our enveloping the St. Matthew Passion and the Sunday morning liturgy in each other, is to bring home the major part of the Christian canon which is hugely ignored. People shout ‘Hosanna’ on Palm Sunday and ‘Hallelujah’ on Easter, forgetting two things: that Resurrection needs Crucifixion for its existence; and that Jesus already knew He was going to die upon entering Jerusalem the week before. Notice that attendance at the Maundy Thursday Service is about 125, compared to 2000 on Easter Sunday. . . We also want to bring the Passion back to its original church setting, where those who only knew it from the concert hall may experience the added dimension it takes on in its own home.

Music gives words wings which can fly right into your heart.

Bach in Space

Mahatma Gandhi, Indian philosopher and peacemaker during that country’s independence movement in the 1940’s, was asked by a Western interviewer: “Mr. Ghandi, what is your feeling about Western culture?” He replied: “I think it would be a good idea.” But an American, Dr. Lewis Thomas, medical doctor, oncologist, President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital in Manhattan, Dean of Yale University Medical School, essayist, author of several books including ‘Medusa and the Snail’ and ‘Lives of a Cell,’ sees things differently. In the mid-‘70’s he addresses the interesting issue of how Earth might best represent herself in a competition with other civilizations light-years away in the cosmos. He writes: “Perhaps the safest thing to do . . . is to send music. This language may be the best we have for explaining what we are like to others in space, with least ambiguity. I would vote for Bach, all of Bach, streamed out into space, over and over again. We would be bragging of course, but it is surely excusable to put the best possible face on at the beginning of such an acquaintance. We can tell the harder truths later.”

And we here on earth, at Calvary Presbyterian, have the once-in-a-lifetime privilege of presenting the greatest composition of the greatest composer during the six Sundays of Lent. What greater bliss!?!?

More 'Soli Deo Gloria'

The view from Mt. Diablo encompasses more of the earth's surface than any other summit on our globe except Mt. Kilimanjaro. If one could hear an entire musical composition the way the eye can see a view from a mountaintop it would be what the Greeks named 'kairos' or non-linear time. On some level everyone can do that. If asked whether you know the tune to 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' you don't have to sing it all the way through before you answer "yes." You know in an instant. That's kairos- hearing something which exists in linear time in an instant no longer than a pin-prick. That's how Bach and Mozart composed music. In response to his father's query as to whether he was composing something or just goofing off, Mozart told him he had just composed a symphony. Upon being asked by his father when he could hear it Mozart replied "when I put pen to paper." On another occasion when Mozart was asked how he composed, he replied "like a sow piddles." Bach, on the other hand, inscribed 'Soli Deo Gloria' at the end of many of his compositions- 'To God alone the glory.' And that's the difference between Bach and Mozart. In their own way they are saying the same thing.
Mozart's a snot
Bach is not
Both are sublime
Enough of this rhym-
ing doggerel!

Bach's Breakthrough Chorales

Bach was never more brilliant than in the originality of his chorale harmonizations. The "science" of musical harmony was formed by Jean-Philippe Rameau in 1726, the year before St. Matthew Passion was composed. Since Bach didn't know the "rules" he was free to explore theretofore unknown harmonies. Almost every composition student uses the corpus of Bach's chorale settings as a textbook. One has to wonder why, in college harmony classes, the ideal is to keep the alto and tenor lines as close to a monotone as possible. Bach goes wild -- cross voices, false relations, savage chromaticism -- whatever is necessary to create a melody of interest in all the parts, not just the soprano. My prof told us, in analysis class, that the chord progression which opened the door to modern music was the first phrase of the "Love Death" (Liebestodt). But he surely must have heard Bach's chorale setting of "Es ist genug." Rameau could have analyzed the Wagner but he would have been hard pressed to figure the Bach. Alban Berg understood. He based his violin concerto on the Bach.

Concert, Entertainment, or Act of Faith?

Not long ago I attended a performance by the San Francisco Symphony of Bach's other Passion, the St. John, at Davies Symphony Hall. It was well-performed and enthusiastically received. But I felt uneasy during the performance; I realized that an important context was missing. More than 200 performers -- orchestra, chorus, and soloists -- filed in and out, dressed in black tie. But is was purely and simply a concert; more than entertainment, but less than an act of faith.