On the program:
Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir (attr. Martin Luther) - Robert MacDonald, bass
Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, after BWV 686 - His Majesty's Sagbutts and Cornetts, Timothy Roberts, director
Cantata BWV 38 Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir (translation) - Deborah York, soprano; Franziska Gottwald, alto; Paul Agnew, tenor; Klaus Mertens, bass; Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, Ton Koopman, conductor
Partita No. 3 in A minor, BWV 827 - Sergey Schepkin, piano (learn more about the Glissando concert series)
Fantasy and Fugue in C minor, BWV 537 - Bálint Karosi, organ (Richards, Fowkes, & Co. Opus 10 organ at First Lutheran Church of Boston)
TRANSCRIPT:
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Boston is a city rich with the architectural and sonic beauty of pipe organs.
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This is one of the more recent additions to this galaxy of great instruments. It’s the Richards, Fowkes, and Company organ at First Lutheran Church, in the Back Bay. You’ll hear why this particular instrument is special, coming up on The Bach Hour.
Hello, I'm Brian McCreath; welcome to The Bach Hour from WCRB, Classical Radio Boston, a part of GBH Music. The organs built during J.S. Bach’s lifetime were the most complex machines of their day. The technology of today offers, without a doubt, possibilities that are well beyond the imagination of anyone who lived in the 18th century. Yet the craft of making organs in that same manner is alive and well. Later in the hour we’ll visit First Lutheran Church to hear that craft in sound.
Also on the program today is the Cantata No. 38, Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, or “Out of deep anguish I call to you.” And you’ll find a translation of that piece from Boston’s Emmanuel Music when you visit us online at Classical dot org. That’s where you can also hear this and past programs again on-demand. Again, that’s at Classical dot org.
The Cantata No. 38 evokes traditions that were already ancient in Bach’s time, partly through the musical DNA he used in writing the piece. He based the cantata on a hymn by none other than Martin Luther, the theologian who triggered the Protestant Reformation. The tune fascinated Bach, who not only used it as the basis for the Cantata 38, but also for three different chorale prelude settings.
Here is the hymn tune, sung by bass soloist Robert MacDonald, followed by one of those chorale preludes, performed on the ancient instruments of His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts.
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The British ensemble His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts, applying their expertise with those ancient instruments to a chorale prelude J.S. Bach based on an ancient hymn tune. That was one of the three preludes Bach wrote on Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, and it was preceded by soloist Robert MacDonald singing the tune itself.
In late October of 1724 Bach used that same hymn for a cantata. Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, or “Out of deep anguish I call to you,” is based on Psalm 130, in which a believer calls out to the divine and faithfully waits for a response. Bach evokes that ancient text and the musical quality you just heard in Luther’s hymn by writing the opening chorus in the motet style of his predecessors from decades earlier. But Bach doesn’t just use that style; he also uses texture, in the form of the dark and, yes, ancient sound of trombones.
After arias by the tenor and soprano, the soprano, alto, and bass soloists join together for the emotional center of the cantata: they start with a downward chain of entrances that paint the words, “When my troubles like chains link one misfortune to another…”
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Only to turn upward on the words, “How soon the morning of comfort appears after this night of anguish and worry!
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An emphatic confirmation of that comfort finally appears in the chorale that ends the piece. But Bach also brings back that ancient texture, connecting that message to the beginning of the cantata and, by extension, the distant past.
You can find a complete translation of this piece by visiting us online at Classical dot org.
Here is a performance of the Cantata No. 38 with soprano Deborah York, alto Franziska Gottwald, tenor Paul Agnew, and bass Klaus Mertens. Ton Koopman conducts the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, here on The Bach Hour.
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The Cantata No. 38, Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, or “Out of deep anguish I call to you,” in a performance by the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, with director Ton Koopman. The soloists included soprano Deborah York, alto Franziska Gottwald, tenor Paul Agnew, and bass Klaus Mertens.
In 1990, a young pianist from St. Petersburg, Russia, arrived in Boston to study at the New England Conservatory with the legendary Russell Sherman. Two years later, he earned an Artist Diploma, and a Doctor of Musical Arts a few years after that. And along the way his musicality and interpretations made him an indispensable part of Boston’s musical community. In 2018, he established his own concert series, Glissando, with programs built around solo piano and chamber music repertoire. Sergey Schepkin has also become especially well-known for a series of excellent recordings of Bach’s music. Here is one of them. This is Bach’s Partita No. 3. Sergey Schepkin is the pianist, here on The Bach Hour.
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That’s pianist Sergey Schepkin, with Bach’s Partita No. 3, in a 2014 performance recorded at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall.
About a 10 minute walk from that incredible jewel of a concert hall, you’ll find another jewel of Boston’s musical landscape in the form of a beautiful pipe organ at First Lutheran Church in the Back Bay. It’s the Richards, Fowkes, and Company Opus 10 instrument, and for eight years, the Music Minister at First Lutheran was Budapest-born Bálint Karosi. Here’s how he describes that instrument:
Bálint Karosi: "It doesn't have any particular instrument that this was copied after. It's just a real historically informed building process that the builders, Richards, Fowkes & Co. acquired through studying North German instruments. And it's not only just copying some of the parts of the organ, but indeed trying to learn how those parts come together and what is the voicing of each pipe. And therefore, this is a very successful copy of what could have been a nice instrument in the 17th, 18th century that Bach would be very familiar playing."
And here is Bálint Karosi and that organ, with Bach’s Fantasy and Fugue in C minor.
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Organist Bálint Karosi, the first prize winner of the 2008 Bach Competition in Leipzig, performing Bach’s Fantasy and Fugue in C minor on the Richards, Fowkes, and Company organ at First Lutheran Church in Boston, one of the few mechanical action, Baroque-style organs in this part of the country.
Remember, if you’d like to hear this program again on-demand, just visit us online at Classical 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.