{"id":85471,"date":"2020-12-27T17:59:01","date_gmt":"2020-12-27T15:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=85471"},"modified":"2020-12-27T18:00:16","modified_gmt":"2020-12-27T16:00:16","slug":"the-music-sanctifies-the-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-music-sanctifies-the-words\/","title":{"rendered":"The Music Sanctifies The Words"},"content":{"rendered":"
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J. S. Bach (1685 – 1750): Wir Danken Dir\u00a0 (\u201cWe praise You, O God\u201d)\u00a0 – Cantata #29<\/span><\/p>\n

Writing what was to become the well-known cantata #29 was tasked to Bach in 1731 by the city of Leipzig in honor of the establishment of a new city council. While an assignment of this sort was apparently given him every year, not many of these works survived. An especially festive work was required, even if his heart was not particularly inspired by this administrative body, whose relations with Bach were not especially harmonious.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, this was a golden opportunity for Bach to demonstrate his talents before the \u201cwho\u2019s who\u201d of Leipzig\u2019s high society, both as an organist and as a composer. These are exactly the conditions that invite recycling and rearranging\u00a0 older materials in as showy a way as possible. For in honor of the event, Bach had at his disposal a large Baroque orchestra, including three trumpets and drums.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The cantata opens with a virtuoso organ solo, accompanied by the orchestra. Only those in the know were aware that this was an adaptation of a movement of a partita for solo violin, that Bach had written before he arrived at Leipzig. The part for choir begins after some four minutes, and is based on Psalm 75:2. Bach scholars believe that this section too was taken from an earlier cantata that has since been lost. On the other hand, Bach aficionados will certainly recognize the music as part and parcel of the Great Mass in B Minor.<\/span><\/p>\n

At first, Bach had used this section as part of the \u201cGloria\u201d that had been performed already in 1733 in Dresden. In his later years, Bach completed the mass, where the same music closes that composition with \u201cDona Nobis Pacem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Fitting various texts to the same musical accompaniment was a common practice in Bach\u2019s day. But it seems as though the musical style that Bach adopted here was particularly appropriate: Bach wrote a sort of motet in the old Renaissance style, slow and melodious, but spare. The melody is nothing but a scale that progresses slowly, which immediately engages in fugal imitations between the four voices of the choir.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With music like this, any text will sound holy and eternal, full of praise and sincere prayers for peace. The antique atmosphere combines with the Baroque notions of euphony that get stronger from stage to stage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bach achieves this not only with the increasing polyphonic complexity, but also with the sounds of the trumpets who join one by one, that gradually increase the volume of the sound, and end the piece with a grand trumpet blast, to the beating of the drums.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bach – Cantata Wir danken dir… BWV 29 – Van Veldhoven | Netherlands Bach Society
\n<\/span>Recorded for the project All of Bach on March 15th, 2019 at St Martin’s Church, Groningen.<\/span><\/p>\n

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