Born on March 21, 1685, in Eisenach, Thuringia,
Germany, Johann Sebastian Bach had a prestigious
musical lineage and took on various organist positions
during the early 18th century, creating famous
compositions like "Toccata and Fugue in D minor." Some
of his best-known compositions are the "Mass in B
Minor," the "Brandenburg Concertos" and "The
Well-Tempered Clavier." Bach died in Leipzig, Germany,
on July 28, 1750. Today, he is considered one of the
greatest Western composers of all time.
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Born on March 21, 1685, in Eisenach, Thuringia,
Germany, Johann Sebastian Bach had a prestigious
musical lineage and took on various organist positions
during the early 18th century, creating famous
compositions like "Toccata and Fugue in D minor." Some
of his best-known compositions are the "Mass in B
Minor," the "Brandenburg Concertos" and "The
Well-Tempered Clavier." Bach died in Leipzig, Germany,
on July 28, 1750. Today, he is considered one of the
greatest Western composers of all time.
There can be little doubt that this is the best known
and most admired of Bach's earliest cantatas. It could
be argued that in later years Bach's art became a great
deal more mature, but it hardly grew more profound. It
is one of those art works that stands at the crossroads
of time, seeming to look both forward and backwards. In
the latter instance it is highly sectional, with little
in the way of the extended, developed movements of the
later years, it is lightly orchestrated, begins with a
short introductory sinfonia and it draws principally
upon chorales and biblical references with the minimum
of added text. On the other hand, it is created from
structural elements which operate across and unite
movements, the writing is highly idiomatic and the
musical architecture derives principally from the
essence of the text.
It is a work of such depth and intensity that one can
scarcely avoid speculating that the deceased for whose
internment it was composed, had some personal
connection with the twenty-two year old composer. Or
perhaps it simply struck a chord that reminded him of
the death of his own parents, scarcely more than a
dozen years previously. But whatever the personal
impact the occasion might have had on him, there is no
disputing the depth and profundity which the emerging
composer managed to elicit from the minimal lines of
conventional text.
The segmented nature of this work makes it seem more
complex than it really is. It falls into four basic
movements thus: sinfonia, chorus (with solos), aria
(becoming a duet) and closing chorale. The longest and
most complex of the two hybrid movements is the
second.
the Sonatina (sinfonia) is from his earliest essays
into the cantata genre, Bach had been attracted to the
notion of making the instrumental introduction an
organic part of the total composition: see, for
example, Cs 4 and 150. His choice of instruments for
this work, two viola da gamba (perhaps most widely
known for their later appearance in Brandenburg 6), two
recorders and continuo together produce a sound that is
today archaic and unworldly. Whether mourners in the
first decade of the eighteenth century would have felt
the same way cannot be known. But the soundscape is
intimate, ethereal and totally suited to the processes
of mourning and personal reflection upon the soul and
character of the departed.
It is only twenty bars long but that is sufficient to
establish the mood and ambience. The recorders play
mostly in unison but when they do not, their
differences are subtle but significant. For example, in
bars 4, 5 and 6 the second instrument falls silent in
the latter part of each bar, thereafter to reunite
itself with its companion. The effect is a telling one
of division and togetherness. In bar 7-8 the
oscillation about two notes (f and e) has the effect of
a slow, macabre trill. Even at this early stage, Bach's
sensitivity to the subtleties of instrumentation was
well developed; the details may seem trivial but they
are artistically significant.
Although originally written for Flutes (2), Viola da
Gambas (2) and Basso Continuo, I created this
arrangement for Oboe & Strings (2 Violins, Viola &
Cello).
PARTITION