On the program:
Prelude in G minor, BWV 535 - Nelson Freire, piano
Cantata BWV 37 Wer da glaubet und getauft wird (translation) - Sybilla Rubens, soprano; Bernhard Landauer, alto; Christoph Pregardien, tenor; Klaus Mertens, bass; Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, Ton Koopman, conductor
Chorale Prelude: Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BWV 739 - Christopher Herrick, organ (Metzler organ at the Stadtkirche, Zoflingen, Switzerland)
English Suite No. 3 in G minor, BWV 808 - Nelson Freire, piano
Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, BWV 1047 - Dunedin Consort, John Butt, conductor
TRANSCRIPT:
Brian McCreath The notes on the page were written by a young professional, still carving out his reputation. His name was Johann Sebastian Bach.
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Brian McCreath But the hands delivering this performance are those of an artist who only released his first recording of Bach’s music at the beginning of his seventh decade. His name was Nelson Freire.
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Brian McCreath You’ll hear Nelson Freire’s elegance and poetry in the English Suite No. 3, coming up on The Bach Hour.
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Brian McCreath Hello, I'm Brian McCreath; welcome to The Bach Hour from Classical Radio Boston WCRB, a part of WGBH. There are some musicians whose interpretations of Bach’s music bursts from the stage and recording studio with the spark of youthful inspiration. And then there are those musicians whose Bach interpretations develop quietly over years. For the late Nelson Freire, it was only in 2015, just after turning 70, that he released his first recording devoted to Bach, and you’ll hear part of it in this hour. Also on the program is the Cantata No. 37, Wer da gläubet und getauft wird, der wird selig werden, or “Whoever believes and is baptized shall be blessed.” You’ll find a translation of that piece from Boston’s Emmanuel Music when you visit us online at Classical dot org, where you can hear this program again on demand. Again, that’s at Classical dot org.
Here is a short transcription by Alexander Siloti of Bach’s Prelude in G minor. But don’t let the word “short” fool you; it’s filled with mystery and drama in this performance by pianist Nelson Freire, here on The Bach Hour.
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Brian McCreath Alexander Siloti was a student of both Liszt and Tchaikovsky, and you can hear their darkly Romantic influence in his transcription of Bach’s Prelude in G minor, in this recording by the late Nelson Freire.
For his Cantata No. 37, Bach more or less avoided drama. Wer da gläubet und getauft wird, der wird selig werden, or “Whoever believes and is baptized shall be blessed,” written to celebrate the Ascension of Jesus after Easter, begins with a choral setting of those words, which are spoken by Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. In his notes for Boston’s Emmanuel Music, composer John Harbison writes that the piece is “about a route to transcendence. Sonority, the glow of A Major, the even flow of unremarkable elements in equilibrium is enough to set this cantata in motion.”
A tenor soloist expands on the idea of belief as a gift, singing that “when He inscribed me in the book of Life, He bestowed this jewel on me.”
And that’s followed by a duet that symbolizes, through variations on a chorale tune, the believer’s union with the divine, through the words, “Your Son has betrothed me to Himself; He is my beloved, I am His bride.”
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Brian McCreath A bass soloist then asks, “You mortals, do you long with me to gaze upon the face of God?” and answers that immediately with “Faith creates the wings of the soul, so that it may soar to heaven.”
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Brian McCreath Remember, you can find a translation of the text for this piece at our website, Classical dot org.
Here is Bach’s Cantata No. 37, featuring soprano Sybilla Rubens, alto Bernhard Landauer, tenor Christoph Pregardien, and bass Klaus Mertens. Ton Koopman directs the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, here on The Bach Hour.
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Brian McCreath The Cantata No. 37 by Bach, in a performance by the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, directed by Ton Koopman. The soloists included soprano Sybilla Rubens, alto Bernhard Landauer, tenor Christoph Pregardien, and bass Klaus Mertens.
The duet at the heart of that cantata is based on the chorale tune, “How brightly shines the morning star.” And here is an organ prelude Bach wrote on that same tune, performed by Christopher Herrick.
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Brian McCreath A chorale prelude on “How brightly shines the morning star,” performed by Christopher Herrick at the Metzler organ in Zofingen, Switzerland.
Nelson Freire began playing the piano at the age of 3 and was on the concert stage for over seven decades before his death in 2021. But it was only in 2015 that he released his first recording devoted to Bach. It includes several transcriptions that highlight the Brazilian pianist's trademark warmth of tone and interpretive insight. And those same qualities come through in the works Bach originally wrote for harpsichord. Here is one of them. Nelson Freire is the pianist in the English Suite No. 3, here on The Bach Hour.
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Brian McCreath That’s the late Nelson Freire, with Bach’s English Suite No. 3, released in 2015. When he played a recital in Boston in 1977, Richard Dyer wrote in the Boston Globe that, “There was hardly a single forced or teasing effect, not a sigh of sentimentality, not a line of hectoring rhetoric. He’s one of the biggest natural talents for the keyboard that I have ever heard.”
Even though Bach apparently wrote his English Suites as a fairly young man, he was already collecting pieces in groups of six. It’s a habit that would continue in his Cello Suites, more of his keyboard suites, and in the Brandenburg Concertos. Here is the Second of those pieces, performed by the Dunedin Consort.
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Brian McCreath That’s the Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, in a performance by the Dunedin Consort, directed by John Butt.
Remember, if you’d like to hear this program on demand, just visit us online at Classical WCRB dot org.
Thank you for joining me today, and thanks also to audio engineer Antonio Oliart Ros. I’m Brian McCreath, and I’ll hope to have your company again next week here on The Bach Hour.