Bach Tuesdays 7th Feb 2023 at St Mary's Ewell Jonathan Holmes
🎞️ · 07.02.2023 · 21:54:43 ··· Dienstag ⭐ 0 🎬 0
📺 Jonathan Holmes
🎬 · 07.02.2023 · 21:54:43 ··· Dienstag
😎 · 03.07.2024 · 15:40:29 ··· MiTTwoch
Bach Concerts at St Mary’s Ewell
Programme for 7th February 2023 1.05pm
Organ Concerto in A minor, BWV 593 after Vivaldi in 3 movements:
1. Allegro 2. Adagio 3. Allegro
Although Bach never lived outside Germany, he was still well aware of what was happening in the music world abroad. When Vivaldi’s volume of revolutionary new concertos L’estro armonico was published in Amsterdam in 1711, it was not long before Bach got a look at it. He was probably introduced to the volume by Prince Johann Ernst, the young nephew of his employer Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar. The prince was Bach’s pupil and a promising musician and composer. Between 1711 and 1713, he studied at Utrecht University, and took home a considerable amount of new music on his return to Weimar. Bach, who was employed by the duke as an organist and chamber musician, transcribed six of the twelve concertos from L’estro armonico for different instruments, arranging the three-part Concerto in A minor for two violins, strings and basso continuo for solo organ.
For Bach, making such a transcription was an ideal way of getting to the essence of what he regarded (according to his biographer Forkel) as a new manner of ‘musical thinking’. Vivaldi’s concertos excel at blending clever short-term and long-term strategies. Driving rhythms and catchy melodic lines are underpinned by a tight structure, while displaying a striking contrast between tutti and solo sections.
The first section of the Concerto in A minor has an energetic drive, the second is dreamy and enchanting, and the third is lively and infectious. As an arranger, Bach remained surprisingly true to the original. Even passages that were written specifically with the violin in mind – such as big intervals and rapidly repeated notes – were transferred to the organ unabridged. Yet Bach did manage to put his own mark on the transcription, besides taking necessary measures like shifting notes where the organ’s register was inadequate or in passages where the two violins double one another. He did so mainly by adding ornaments, complementing the middle voice and completing chords to reinforce the harmony. The tutti sections are played on the great organ (the largest part of the organ) and the solo sections on the choir organ (the smaller part at Ewell immediately in front of the player).
It stands to reason that Bach’s experiences with transcriptions like this one gave an important boost to the development of his own musical style. More and more often, he joined up the solid German style with the Italian musical architecture, thus enriching solidity with sophistication and straightforwardness with passion.
Toccata and Fugue in F Major, BWV 540.
An awe-inspiring musical drama unfolds in J.S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in F Major, BWV 540. Developing with a sense of sublime inevitability and self-organising structure, it is hard to believe that any mortal could have written such powerful and perfect music.
The monumental Toccata is an exuberant celebration of canonic counterpoint. An unrelenting two-part canon expands across 108 bars over an unflinching pedal tone. Harmonically, the music pulls away from its firm foundation in F and then, in an elaborate process, finds its way back to a triumphant homecoming. Along the way, there are jarring and deceptive surprises in the form of cadences which set up our expectations for a resolution and then pull the rug out from under us. These teasing moments keep the “game” going. It would have been fascinating to witness the audience’s reaction at the first performance. Of all of Bach’s prelude-fugues, this Toccata is the most massive.
The Fugue is filled with chromaticism and dissonances. Two fugue subjects are exposed in separate sections and then combined in a moment of contrapuntal majesty. Notice the way the foot pedals in the depths of the organ drop out for an extended period, allowing the higher voices to meander freely, and then return with titanic power. Listen for the moment in the final bars when the opening falling chromatic fugue subject enters in the mighty bass line of the pedals. Infiltrating the DNA of the entire piece, Bach’s subject is a persistent, unrelenting Power which cannot be ignored.
Next Concerts and Recitals for 2023
Saturday Feb 18th 2.30pm Eine kleine Wiener Musik
Jamie Akers, Susana Teixeira and friends perform a programme of Viennese salon music for flute, viola and guitar, with lieder including Beethoven, and Schubert.
Tuesday 7th March 1.05pm Bach
Admission to the Saturday Concerts is £10 suggested donation for over 18s. The Tuesday concerts are free and are followed by afternoon tea. Every penny raised goes towards restoration of the Willis organ.
· 07.02.2023 · 21:54:43 ··· Dienstag
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