Ever upwards with Bach and Dante

You can see I'm in danger of being left behind on terra firma in both my big pursuits of the year, with four out of seven Bach cantatas to catch up on here - I'll deal with the other three alongside next today's in a future post - and four Dante lectures to comment upon, of which I missed one. Nevertheless I'll make some effort to be light and airy like the masters.

It seems I was premature in leaving Purgatorio behind in my previous Dante/Bach post: there turned out to be one more Warburg Institute class on the middle cantica. The most treasurable utterance, of many, that I took away from Professor Took, of many, was a very helpful summary of the Dantean essence in response to one of the questions in the discussion: 'Peope's lives are mixed, ambiguous in the extreme, simultaneously in hell, purgatory and paradise. In order to explore [the issue], he divides it out. The moment of truth lies somewhere in the unutterable complexity of the here and now'.

Even so, Dr Scafi prepared us for 'a difficult and allegorical Canto' (33, the last, of Purgatorio) in the shape of the final processional which represents the triumph of the church (sketched above by Botticelli, no less), complete with the four cardinal virtues, three theological virtues and Beast of the Apocalypse. The difficulties pale into insignificance once we reach Paradiso. Dante warns the slackers among us - and there must be many more now than in that religiously obsessive age - at the beginning of Canto 2 (with acknowledgment to Robert W Durling's literal translation):

   O voi chi siete in piccioletta barca,
desiderosi d'ascoltar, seguiti
dietro al mio legno, ché cantando varca:
   tornate a riveder li vostri liti,
non vi mettete in pelago, che forse,
perdendo me, rimarreste smarriti;
   l'acqua ch'io prendo già mai non si corse;
Minerva spira, e conducemi Appollo,
e nove Muse mi dimostran l'Orse.

O you who in little barks, desirous of listening, have followed after my ship that sails onward singing, turn back to see your shores again, do not put out on the deep sea, for perhaps, losing me, you would be lost; the waters that I enter have never before been crossed; Minerva inspires and Apollo leads me, and nine Muses point out to me the Bears.

Despite the comfort of mythological and classical signposts, the Christian theology, albeit that Dante has such a singular take on much of it, is what makes so many of Beatrice's homilies rather hard for the contemporary reader. So is the assurance of a now outdated cosmology; it can't all be taken as poetic metaphor, after all. Nevertheless, the guidance of our Warburg Dante and Virgil (who has long disappeared from the scene in the Divina Commedia, of course), and the thoroughness of the notes to the Durling edition (of which the Paradiso volume runs to 873 pages) make the most difficult journey worthwhile.

The best of our two most recent classes, for me, has been in the discussions. I'm getting antsy: why should Piccarda Donati and the empress Constanza be in the lowest sphere, the moon, in Canto 3 (pictured above), simply because men snatched them out of their nunneries and forced them into unspeakable wedlock? And why does the narrative of Dante's Thomas Aquinas about St Francis seem so hard and charmless to us, expecting at least something of the goodly saint's conversation with nature?

Dante's Beatrice provides part of the answer when it comes to the two paradisical ladies in Canto 4: they merely appear in the moon, and actually adorn the first sphere, the Empyrean. It's a matter of conscience. Well, that's half satisfactory. And Prof. Took thinks that the narrator Dante is playing the serpent when he asks them if they don't desire a higher place. Smiling and joyful Piccarda replies that 'it is constitutive of this blessed to stay within God's will, and thus .our very wills become one' ('Anzi e formale ad esto beato esse/tenersi dentro a la divina voglia/per ch'una fansi nostre voglie stesse', 3.79-81).

As for Francis, the harshness is to do, as Prof. Took put it, with Dante's 'stringent selectivity' - he has an axe to grind with the Dominicans and their tendency towards luxury in opposition to the Franciscans, led by a man who took Poverty as his Bride. He's 'too angry', has 'too much of an agenda' to spend time on the birds and the beasts.

Bach doesn't always do the expected thing, either, though his line of communication is always direct thanks to the expressive power of music. His first Ascension cantata for Leipzig, 'Wer da gläubert und getauft wird' comes not with trumpets and drums but an exquisite halo of two oboi d'amore, a short if uplifting opening chorus and an affirmative tenor aria with ardent violin obbligato. Loveliest is the chorale for soprano and mezzo in imitation with dancing continuo support, as Brides of Christ complete with joyous 'eia's- irresistible when Rilling's soloists here are Arleen Auger and Carolyn Watkinson.

That fine alto distinguishes BWV 44, 'Sie werden euch in den Bann tun', with a superb aria alongside oboe and bassoon. The opening is surprising: two parts of the text run respectively as a duet for tenor and bass and a harmonically wayward chorus in faster tempo. The chorale for tenor here has a distinctly weird, chromatic accompaniment from bassoon, there are fabulous adventures from the bass line in the virtuoso soprano aria, verging on the Handelian, and the closing chorale is familiar from its similar setting in the Matthew Passion.

BWV 172, 'Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten!' for Whitsunday, is much more what one might expect for Ascension. It comes as no surprise to learn that its three celebratory trumpets, which go virtuoso-crazy in the bass aria (a good, if short alternative to Handel's 'The Trumpet Shall Sound'), were originally meant for a secular celebration, but they suit the celestial setting of the Weimar chapel (pictured below, no longer extant, alas) for which they were destined in 1714. The tenor aria offers some room for reflection, and a presumably deliberate harping on minor seconds in the 'weh' of 'wehet'.

Intimacy is apt for the Whitsun Monday and Tuesday cantatas, both of which begin with charming recitatives. BWV 173, 'Erhöhtes Fleisch und Blut", is another cantata adapted from a profane congratulatory set. It haas a radiant beginning (plus a non-chorale final number, unusual but not unique among the cantatas) and a lilting 6/8 tenor aria (beautifully sung on the Rilling set by his regular, Adalbert Kraus) with flute doubling first violin line to strong effect. The most original number, in which each of three verses, first for bass, then soprano, then the two together, is treated with increasing elaboration, is ruined by the only inadequate soprano I've heard on the Rilling set so far; let's hope she's a one-off.

BWV 175, 'Er rufet seinen Schafen mit Namen' captures the good-shepherd pastoral aspect with three recorders - and we're back to excellent soloists - Watkinson, Schreier, Huttenlocher - exchanged for two very florid trumpets before the finale choral reverts to the original colouring. Last night, in the only one of the three Gardiner cantata sequences I was able to catch over the Bach weekend at the Barbican, there was equal rustic beauty in the perfect correspondence between countertenor Reginald Mobley and Rachel Beckett and Christine Garratt on two transverse flautes for the aria 'Wohl euch, ihr auserwählten Seelen' in BWV 20. But I feel that's all I can write on the evening's cornucopia of riches for now, lest you feel drowned in BWV numbers. More anon.

Dante in Eden, Bach after Easter

Maybe there was a part of me mildly disappointed by Dante's arrival in the Garden of Eden at the very top of Mount Purgatory for his crucial meeting with Beatrice. I guess I'd expected more description of the natural paradise à la Milton, whereas it's subordinate to allegory and rather too much theologising towards the end of Purgatorio. But then I missed the chance to hear Dr. Scafi and Professor Took spread their own special love for these Cantos, overrunning as I did on the last class devoted to Janáček's From the House of the Dead (we had to see two acts of Chéreau's production, and even the extra time I'd allocated overran).

Certainly, though, the official leavetaking speech of Virgil is moving, and concise. I ought to reproduce it here so that, like the examples quoted in my previous Dante/Bach entry, I can try and memorise the Italian when I have time. Translation once again the literal but effective one by Robert M Durling.

in me ficcò Virgilio li occhi suoi, 
    e disse: "Il temporal foco e l’etterno
veduto hai, figlio, e se’ venuto in parte
dov’io per me più oltre non discerno. 
   Tratto t’ ho qui con ingegno e con arte;
lo tuo piacere omai prendi per duce;
fuor se’ de l’erte vie, fuor se’ de l’arte.
    Vedi lo sol che ’n fronte ti riluce;
vedi l’erbette, i fiori e li arbuscelli
che qui la terra sol da sé produce.
    Mentre che vegnan lieti li occhi belli
che, lagrimando, a te venir mi fenno,
seder ti puoi e puoi andar tra elli.
    Non aspettar mio dir più né mio cenno;
libero, dritto e sano è tuo arbitrio,
e fallo fora non fare a suo senno.
   Per ch’io te sovra te corono e mitrio"

Virgil fixed his eyes on me
   and said: "The temporal fire and the eternal
have you seen, my son, and you have come to a 
place where I by myself discern no further.
   I have drawn you here with wit and with art;
your own pleasure now take as leader: you are
beyond the steep ways, beyond the narrow.
   See the sun that shines on your brow, see the
grasses, the flowers, and the bushes that here the
earth brings forth of itself alone.
   Until the lovely eyes arrive in their gladness
which weeping made me come to you, you can sit
and you can walk among them.
   No longer await any word or sign from me: free,
upright and whole is your will, and it would be a 
fault not to act according to its intent.
   Therefore you over yourself I crown and mitre. 

The interrupted dialogue between Beatrice and Dante is certainly unusual. At first, 'regal and haughty in bearing, she upbraids him, and only deigns eventually to show the warmth he craves, finally smiling towards the end of the last Canto, 33. On with the summer term, anyway, where our Dante and our still present Virgil at the Warburg will lead us through Paradiso.

It seems ages since we last met for the final Purgatorio class I was able to attend; and it's been too long since I actually listened to a Bach cantata on the Sunday for which it was intended. I have the five after Easter to deal with here, and since sharp memory of all of them fades - I have the notes in my book still - I must head only for the high points, and three arias especially.

BWV 42, 'Am abend aber desselbigen Sabbats' begins with an almost Handelian sinfonia - the only cantata to start that way in Bach's second Leipzig cycle - before the tenor introduces the opening text over throbbing strings (perhaps the beating hearts of the Disciples as Christ walks among them). And then, and then, one of the loveliest arias in all the cantatas, surely, and that's saying something (one would probably have to include at least two dozen in the top list). The first of the two oboes made me want to get my long-neglected instrument out of its case. Gardiner describes how he found 'Wo zwei und drei versammlet sind' 'unbearably pained and sad at our first performance, and far more serene and consoling at the second'. Can't find a recording to match Rilling's two oboes and mezzo Julia Hamari, so here's the whole thing from the cycle to which I'm adhering. The aria is at 6m42s.

BWV 85, 'Ich bin ein guter Hirt' starts with bittersweet pastoral and flows beautifully. BWV 146 begins originally with a surprising adaptation of the D minor Harpsichord Concerto - brilliantly rendered, incidentally, on the Jean Rondeau disc we nominated as BBC Music Magazine concerto disc of the year, and I'd have been happy had it won. Wonder of wonders, there's even a film of the first movement to go with the recording on YouTube. If, like me, you're not usually excited by the harpsichord, this should help you change your mind.

The cantata continnues with a slow, astringent choral movement, also concerto-based. It has the next ineffable aria of my three, 'Ich säe meine Zähren', conjoined with a very expressive recitative, also for the soprano, haloed by sustained strings. Helen Donath is the best possible substitute for Arleen Auger, Rilling's most frequent soprano. One wonders if Mozart's exquisite woodwind ensemble writing stemmed from Bach - nothing could be lovelier than the quartet of flute, two oboes d'amore and bassoon on the bass line. Because I don't actually like Rilling's organ in a couple of stops, I've chosen Gardiner for the complete recording. Recit and aria are at 24m13s

It's a contrasting expression of sowing with tears and reaping with joy. These 'twixt-Easter-and-Ascension cantatas seem much to do with earthly sorrows, heavenly promise, but maybe that's the essence of the Lutheran texts throughout. I'm going to pass swiftly over BWV 166, with its striking short phrases for oboes and violins around the bass's 'Wo gehest du hin?'s and another lovely weave of solo violin and oboe around the tenor aria, and end with BWV 87, 'Bisher habt ihr nichts gebeten'. The winner here is another alto aria, 'Vergib, o Vater, unsre Schuld', with elaborate writing for oboes da caccia, a rising bass line and one of Bach's most involved middle sections, winsome when it breaks out into triplets. The mezzo/alto needs superb breath control here. Alas, no Rilling on YouTube, and some weedy countertenors are no substitute, so I had to make do with Koopman - too slow, I think - because of Bogna Bartosz at 2m44s.

The tenor's recit ties in nicely with Dante's far from easy journey to the top of Purgatorio: 'When our guilt climbs all the way to heaven, you see and know my heart, which hides nothing from you; so seek to comfort me'.

Best CDs of 2017 - BBC Music Mag Awards and me

To discover the one of these six favourite discs I reviewed or rated in 2017 which not quite enough of my fellow jurors were persuaded to shortlist, you'll have to head over to the voting page of the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2018. I'm finally free to divulge a little more about the December day at Editor Olly Condy's home in Bristol when seven of us, plied with cake and home-made membrillo plus plentiful cups of strong coffee, thrashed out our choices - and a very amiable conference it was (the others on the panel were Olly, Reviews Editor Rebecca Franks, Nicholas Anderson, Erica Jeal,  Andrew McGregor and Kate Wakeling).

Suffice it to say that of the above, Sean Shibe's first complete solo disc, of British guitar music, Bychkov's recording of Schmidt's Second Symphony and the revelatory Martinů Cantatas on Supraphon won the greatest degree of unanimity among us (my reviews of the latter two should be on the BBCMM website, but the reviews index is patchy and they aren't, yet). I'm also pleased that Alec-Frank Gemmill's enterprise in going flat-out for a CD that wasn't just the usual recital disc - featuring four different period horns, and Alasdair Beatson playing four different period pianos - made the grade.

You are of course free to vote any way you wish, or not at all; these are only my opinions, but I hope a bit more background is helpful. Biggest surprise for me was the electrifying approach of Jean Rondeau - anything but a cool dude in the performances - and Dynastie Bach family harpsichord concertos; since that got its nomination, I can't be too sad that Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque didn't make it too, though I liked her quasi-improvisatory playing just as much.

Instrumental and Chamber were the hardest categories to choose from, overwhelming us with riches; though content with the three nominations in each category, I would have been equally happy with Beatrice Rana's startling Bach Goldberg Variations, up there with Denk and Gould;

another surprise favourite, Shai Wosner's brilliant programming of 'Impromptus', one way forward in recital planning which he shares with fellow pianist Ari Porat;

violinist Daniel Rowland and pianist Natacha Kudritskaya rising to the near-impossible challenges of Enescu's supernatural Third Violin Sonata;

and several quartet discs. I got to know Grieg Quartets played with magical pianissimos where required by a group with whom I was also unfamiliar, the Meccore String Quartet, and another of those imaginatively planned programmes which seem the prerogative of the younger generation comes from the Schumann Quartet(t), linking 'Landscapes' of Haydn, Takemitsu, Bartók and Pärt .

There was an endgame battle for Instrumental because two of us hadn't received Krystian Zimerman's Schubert Sonatas by the day of judgement. Our front-runners pending that included my absolute favourite, Alexander Melnikov's first disc of Prokofiev sonatas (Melnikov was also a top contender with Andreas Staier in very live-wire Schubert piano duets).

Because it's perhaps the finest performance I've ever heard of the Sixth Sonata, and equal first with Richter in the Eighth, I'd put this above Zimerman's Schubert, since he stands alongside quite a few other greats. But still, when I finally heard it, I had to include Zimerman in my final three over Fenella Humphrys' 'Bach to the Future 2' - great playing, but for me there were a couple of duds among the new works. That probably gave Zimerman the edge in the joint final choice. Anyway, Melnikov will be back with Volume Two of his Prokofiev soon, which should give the 2018 panel something to get hold of...

Since this is also about discs which may not be new, but which I discovered in 2017, I have to give an awed salute to pianist Peter Jablonski, whose playing I haven't heard for years and whose fiancee, the vivacious Anastasia Belina, became a new friend last year when we appeared together in a pre-Proms talk.

It would have been my prerogative to simply pass over the discs she sent in silence if there had been nothing special, but they're first rate - I even think I prefer Jablonski's Grieg over Andsnes' (whose Sibelius disc, by the way, nearly reached the Instrumental category, but that was so saturated with good performances this year). Liszt, well, the repertoire isn't so much to my taste, but I can't deny the magisterial diversity of the approach. Wonderful sound from the Japan-based issues, too.

In another hangover from a previous year, having been mesmerised by young Pavel Kolesnikov's selection of Chopin Mazurkas at a lunchtime Prom, I caught up with this disc, which goes right to the top of my Chopin list (or equal first with several, at any rate).

But back to the Awards. Quite a few might-have-beens bit the dust in Orchestral - Paavo Järvi's lithe and clear-lined Strauss Ein Heldenleben and Don Juan just missed the final three by one vote, and Vaughan Williams gave rise to three front-runners - though the fresh kick applied by Andrew Davis to the more Satanic moments of the ballet Job as well as the eerie solos in the Ninth Symphony clinched the chosen one for me. Terje Tønnesen's string-orchestra versions of the Janáček String Quartets may have missed out by being rather hard to categorise, not least because of the excellent adaptation of Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata (inspiration for the First Quartet) so well read - in English AND Norwegian - by Teodor Janson.

Sadly my personal favourite Opera/Vocal disc, Daniel Behle's Schubert Arias, wasn't to a couple of reviewers' taste repertoire-wise, and the period-instrument orchestra is not so highly rated

but I'm delighted Ann Hallenberg's delicious programme of Venetian carnival arias made the list. I'm also glad to have made the acquaintance of Louis Andriessen's Theatre of the World. Those who saw the world premiere production say this audio recording leaves more to the imagination, though I'd love to see a director like Richard Jones tackle its black-comedy apocalypse.

I also fought hard for both Louise Alder's and Nicky Spence's Strauss songs (the last a real surprise, conclusion to the excellent Hyperion series) in the Vocal category, but mezzo Jamie Barton's debut disc was a unanimous choice. There's a vocal personality that just leaps out at you; and that's a necessary virtue when you have over 200 discs to listen to and you can't sit there riveted with a score for every one. The special ones always make you stop what you're doing and listen properly.

Very happy with the Choral choices - as well as the Martinů, they included the best Estonian choir of all, Vox Clamantis, whose acquaintance I made at Tallinn's 2017 Estonian Music Days, in a peerless Pärt programme.

Champion oddity of the year for me, one that actually works, was the Japanese percussionist Kuniko giving a whole new, lugubrious and hypnotic meaning to Bach on the marimba. Don't think that even got reviewed in the BBC Music Mag last year, but if it did, it wasn't on the list. 

Is Bach the only composer who can be transferred to just about any instrument? It seems so: another Awards nomination I was sorry not to see reach the final three was the unusual trio of cellist Yo-Yo Ma, mandolinist Chris Thile and bass player Edgar Meyer in trio sonatas and other transcriptions; there's some magically deft playing in the more virtuosic passages there.

Needless to say my most serendipitous discovery of 2017, which I've already chronicled here and here, was the wonder of Helmuth Rilling's Bach cantatas.

It was an easy step from charity-shop purchases to the complete set, which will be keeping me company every Sunday and holy day in 2018.

Today's Cantata for the Third Sunday after Epiphany was BWV 111, 'Was mein Gott will, das g'scheh Allzeit', another gem from January 1725. The adoring, adorning pair of winds this two are oboes, dialoguing with violins in thirds around lively choral counterpoint and a terrific busy bass. This opening chorus may be in the minor, but it's all spritely. The cantus firmus hymn is one from 1547 by Albrecht von Brandenburg, who brought Lutherism to his state. Either his was a lopsided face or Cranach the Elder hasn't quite got it right here.

The cantata bursts with a muscular Christianity in the bass aria and a pounding duet for alto and tenor driven by dotted rhythms  - not quite charming, and it might be one of the few places in the Rilling set where the voices (Helen Watts and Lutz-Michael Herder) aren't perfectly matched, but the impression remains one of forceful vivacity to fit the 'confident steps' ('behertzten Schritten'). The surprise for me was the twist in the short but expressive soprano recitative before the final chorale, reminding us unexpectedly of that final struggle where death tears the spirit from the body, the deathbed a 'battleground' ('Kampftplatz'). The oboes are back at hand to guide the soloist through this final dark night. Lesson for the day: never take the essence of any cantata for granted until it's all over.

Now, on with that voting.