Saturday, 8th December 2007

Saturday, December 8, 2007 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Schulich School of Music, McGill University
Tana Schulich Hall
527 Sherbrooke Street West
$20 / Students $5 Coffee and Lunch included pre-registration required

Symposium Faith, Text and Music

Chair: Prof. Peter Schubert, Schulich School of Music, McGill University

Prof. Martin Petzoldt, University of Leipzig

Theological adaptation of text-patterns and musical arrangement by Bach, for exampel from BWV 62.

All of J.S. Bach's choral-cantatas contain not only texts of hymns but also biblical psalms or old-ecclesiastical hymns. The text of cantata BWV 62 "Nun komm der Heiden Heiland/Now comes the gentiles' Saviour" falls back on Luther's song of the same name which is itself a free adaptation of the hymn "Veni redemptor gentium", by Ambrosius. The talk will focus, step by step, on the theological variations and modifications from Ambrosius' hymn to Luther's, and the steps from Luther's hymn to the text of Bach's cantata setting which assumes not only the cantata text, but also the hymns of Luther and Ambrosius.

Prof. Tanya Kevorkian, Millersville University of Pennsylvania

Congregants and the Cantata Chorale in Leipzig, 1700-1750

The relationship of congregants to the Baroque cantata chorale has been discussed often, but rarely in detail. After discussing congregants' reception of the cantata as a whole relative to their arrival in church, their departure, and their attentiveness, this paper will go on to focus on the chorale specifically. Congregants could relate to chorales in a number of ways. They were usually familiar with the tune and the verse of the hymn from which the chorale was drawn. For BWV 62 and many of his other cantatas, J.S. Bach, like other composers of his time, selected a well-known hymn as the basis of the chorale. With hymnals having been recently introduced in Leipzig churches, congregants could follow along even if they were not familiar with the chorale. The chorale thus brought the entire cantata into focus for congregants, since they were usually not familiar with the rest of the piece, which additionally was technically more elaborate than the chorale. Finally, the paper will take up a question that has arisen periodically in Bach scholarship: whether congregants sang the chorale. There are some indications that they probably did not, and there is no firm evidence that they did in Leipzig, although they did in some other towns. However, there is indirect evidence that they may have sung; also, writers of the time specified that congregants were not forbidden to. Thus, it is possible that some people followed along with the singers.

Prof. Mark Peters, Trinity Christian College, Palos Heights

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (BWV 62) within the Context of J. S. Bach's Second Leipzig Jahrgang

In light of the textual, liturgical, and historical perspectives in the panel's first two papers, this study explores J. S. Bach's 1724 cantata for the First Sunday of Advent, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (BWV 62), from the standpoint of compositional technique. For the Lutheran church in the eighteenth century, the First Sunday of Advent was a significant occasion marking the beginning of the liturgical year. Furthermore, the sacred cantatas composed for this occasion in Bach's Leipzig took on even greater significance due to the fact that no concerted music was performed during the ensuing three Sundays in Advent. But in relation to Bach's second Leipzig Jahrgang, BWV 62 serves more as a compositional culmination of the preceding liturgical season (the final Sundays after Trinity) than a new beginning.
This paper explores the compositional techniques Bach employed in BWV 62 with special attention to the role of the cantata within the chorale cantatas of the second Jahrgang. It focuses especially on the first movement of BWV 62 in relation to Bach's approach to the large-scale opening chorale chorus in the second Jahrgang and to Bach's settings of the "Nun komm" text and tune in his other cantatas for the First Sunday of Advent, BWV 61 (in 1723) and BWV 36 (in 1731). It further examines Bach's treatment of aria in BWV 62 in light of the composer's other virtuosic arias for tenor and for bass in his second Jahrgang. The paper concludes with a consideration of how such an approach to BWV 62 contributes to our understanding of the chorale cantatas and of Bach's second Leipzig Jahrgang.

Saturday, December 8, 2007 5 p.m.

St. George's Church
1101, rue Stanley
$32 / Seniors $25 / Students $17

B & B - Bach and Buxtehude

Geneviève Soly, harpsichord and organ
Gilles Cantagrel, lecturer (pre-concert lecture in French)

Johann Sebastian Bach
Toccata in D major, BWV 912a
Sonata after Reinken in A minor, BWV 965
Fantasy "duobus subiectis" in G minor, BWV 917
Fantasy on the chorale Christ lag in Todesbanden, BWV 718
Dietrich Buxtehude
32 variations on La Capricciosa, BuxWV 250
Canzonetta in D major, BuxWV 172
Georg Böhm
Chorale Vater unser im Himmelreich

Saturday, December 8, 2007 8 p.m.

Saint-Léon de Westmount Church
4311, boul. de Maisonneuve West
Tickets from $20 to $45

Backing Up Bach

Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal
Christopher Jackson, artistic direction

Martin Luther
Chorale Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Missa sine nomine (extracts)
Johann Hermann Schein
Motet Quem vidistis pastores (Israels Brünnlein)
Motet O Herr Jesu Christe (Cymbalum Sionium)
Dietrich Buxtehude
Missa alla brevis, BuxWV 114
Antonio Lotti
Crucifixus a 8
Johann Christoph Bach
Motet Herr, nun lässet du deinen Diener in Friede fahren
Motet Fürchte dich nicht
Motet Der Gerechte
Jan Dismas Zelenka
Responsories for Maundy Thursday (In monte Oliveti - Tristis es
Anima mea)
Johann Ludwig Bach
Motet Gott sei uns gnädig
Johann Sebastian Bach
Chorale Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott