On the program:
Contrapunctus I, from The Art of the Fugue - Emerson String Quartet
Cantata BWV 33 Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ (translation) - Franziska Gottwald, alto; Paul Agnew, tenor; Klaus Mertens, bass; Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, Ton Koopman, conductor
Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 1100 - Hans Fagius, organ (1728 Cahman instrument at Leufsta Bruk, Sweden)
"Sheep May Safely Graze," from Cantata BWV 208 (arr. Petri) - Leon Fleisher, piano
Chaconne, after the Violin Partita No. 2, BWV 1004 (Etude No. 5 for the Left Hand, arr. Brahms) - Leon Fleisher, piano
Hear an interview with Leon Fleisher, recorded at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
TRANSCRIPT:
Brian McCreath There’s some evidence – along with a lot of speculation – that this music has its origins in a time of extraordinary personal difficulty for J.S. Bach.
Whatever the facts, there’s no question that the music itself is infused with aspects of struggle and consolation, a trajectory familiar to pianist Leon Fleisher.
Leon Fleisher story and a wisdom hard-won over the decades informs Bach’s Chaconne, coming up on The Bach Hour.
Hello, I'm Brian McCreath; welcome to The Bach Hour from WCRB, Classical Radio Boston. Struggle is a part of life no matter who we are. But some of us encounter, maybe, more than our fair share of obstacles. Leon Fleisher is one of the most extraordinary musicians of his generation, but his pathway was filled with a challenge almost unimaginable to most of us. To him, though, that difficult pathway turned into an opportunity. You’ll hear how he described that dynamic later in the hour, along with his performance of Bach’s music as re-imagined by Johannes Brahms.
Also on the program today is the Cantata No. 33, inspired by the parable of the Good Samaritan. You can find a translation of the text for that piece from Boston’s Emmanuel Music at Classical W C R B dot org.
Some of Bach’s music is built around explicit themes, while other works are purely abstract musical creations, even if they maintain a distinc emotional pull. Here is a small part of one such set of works. From The Art of Fugue, this is Contrapunctus No. 1, performed by the Emerson String Quartet, here on The Bach Hour.
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Brian McCreath The name Bach gave to that piece is as direct as the idea behind the music itself: Contrapunctus 1 is from a series of short examples of counterpoint, which is when independent musical lines interact to create something greater than each part. The Emerson String Quartet performed the first in a set of which the name is slightly more evocative: The Art of Fugue.
I’m Brian McCreath, and you’re listening to The Bach Hour, from WCRB.
The parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the most familiar stories in the Bible. And when it’s invoked these days, the focus is invariably on the person who, against all expectations, exhibits empathy and humanity towards another. But when Bach played off of that parable to create his Cantata No. 33, he focused instead on the Divine as the source of strength and hope, the Samaritan presumably being just one expression of divine will.
Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, or “Only upon you, Lord Jesus Christ,” begins with an elaborate chorus in which an embedded chorale tune, the text of which translates as “Only upon you, Lord Jesus Christ, does my hope rest on earth.”
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Brian McCreath The extroverted character of that opening chorus is matched by the intimacy of an aria soon thereafter. It’s music that the late Craig Smith of Emmanuel Music described, in terms of tone, musical structure, and emotional basis, as a precursor to the Blues, in which the alto soloist sings “How fearfully my steps wander, yet Jesus listens to my pleas.”
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Brian McCreath After that centerpiece of the cantata, the tenor and bass soloists sing a duet that alludes to the theme of the Good Samaritan story, the believer asking the divine for help in loving one’s neighbors, echoed in the community voice in the final chorale.
Remember, you can find a translation of this piece from Boston’s Emmanuel Music at our website, Classical WCRB dot org
Here is Bach’s Cantata No. 33, with alto Franziska Gottwald, tenor Paul Agnew, and bass Klaus Mertens. Ton Koopman leads the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, here on The Bach Hour.
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Brian McCreath Bach’s Cantata No. 33, Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, or “Only upon you, Lord Jesus Christ,” with alto soloist Franziska Gottwald, tenor Paul Agnew, and bass Klaus Mertens. Ton Koopman led the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir.
The chorale tune Bach used as the basis for the first and last movements of that cantata is also the foundation for this short organ prelude, performed by Hans Fagius.
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Brian McCreath Performed on an instrument built by Swedish organ builder Johan Niclas Cahman only a few years after Bach wrote the cantata you just heard, that was Hans Fagius with a prelude on Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, or “Only upon you, Lord Jesus Christ.”
When pianist Leon Fleisher died in 2020, at the age of 92, we lost a musician of extraordinary insight and integrity, qualities that come through even in short pieces, like this, “Sheep May Safely Graze,” from Bach’s Cantata 208.
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Brian McCreath In an arrangement by the early 20th Century Dutch pianist Egon Petri, that’s “Sheep May Safely Graze,” from Bach’s Cantata 208, in a 2004 release from the late Leon Fleisher. It was Fleisher’s first recording made with both hands in roughly four decades.
Fleisher had been known from a very early age as a remarkable musician. He studied piano with Artur Schnabel, was a soloist with the New York Philharmonic in his teens, and won the Queen Elizabeth competition in 1952. Then, in 1965, in the midst of a thriving career that included a series of extraordinary recordings, something else extraordinary happened, but not in a good way. He lost the use of his right hand. I had the privilege of meeting Leon Fleisher at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony, in 2013. And I asked him to describe the life he thought he was headed for at that time.
Leon Fleisher Had I not had this 35-year bout with focal dystonia in my right hand, I probably just would have continued being a two-handed pianist, piano player and hopefully increasing my repertoire and growing more, more wise and concise and economical in a sense with time. But I did contract focal dystonia, which limited my playing and suddenly forced me to expand my activities and vision as a musician, both in my teaching aspects as well as repertoire aspects, learning as much of the left-hand repertoire as I found interesting and challenging. So, yeah, my life did take a detour, what seemed to be a detour, that turned into a kind of turnpike to happiness or something. [Fleisher laughs] I don't know what you'd call it.
Brian McCreath Leon Fleisher eventually recovered the use of his right hand through some ground-breaking medical interventions more than three decades after being forced to find new ways to channel his musical voice. But those channels remained powerfully expressive for him, and he continued to make works for the left hand only a major part of his repertoire.
From that category here is a work that became a signature for Fleisher. It probably emerged in its original form, for solo violin, as Bach was working through the difficulty of losing his first wife, Maria Barbara. Johannes Brahms found it so compelling that he re-created it as a piano piece, for the left hand only. Leon Fleisher is the pianist in the Chaconne from Bach’s Violin Partita No. 2, here on The Bach Hou.
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Brian McCreath The Chaconne, from Bach’s Violin Partita No. 2, arranged for piano left hand by Brahms, and performed here by the late Leon Fleisher.
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.