Joel,
I think it is rather interesting to discuss this, bringing us a little
closer, in our own minds, to Bach's circumstances. I wonder if this might
explain the close similarity of Anna Magdalena's handwriting to that of her
husband?
Some other listers have also commented on their church choir experience as
basically read-it-then-do-it, demonstrating that it is at least possible -
but are they reading things like 'Nun ist das Heil und die Kraft...'? For
my part I remain convinced of rehearsals on weekdays. Does anyone on the
List live in Sachsen and have access to venerable traditions?
Spitta says that the hours of singing for the boys in the Thomasschule were
at 9 on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays and at 12 on Mondays and Wednesdays,
Bach himself taught only the four upper classes and also had to teach Latin
(!) to the third class.
Aha! I note this: The rehearsals of the Sunday Music took place in the
church regularily on Saturday after two o'clock vespers and lasted till
four o'clock. Spitta goes on and on about this sort of thing. Apparently
the Rector complained that Bach was only giving 1 hour singing classes when
he should have given two hour ones. It would have been interesting to know
what went on in those classes. Apparently the Thomaner boys were a bit
rough, maybe inner city kind of kids.
Well, so there we have it! john
At 09:13 AM 7/6/00 -0700, you wrote:
>Hi John, List, world...
>
>When I mentioned "text" I was mainly thinking of the scriptural
>passages and maybe traditional hymns - indeed they are known in
>advance - but I'd be pretty confident that Bach didn't have any
>advance knowledge of where the pastor would go with it - just as
>the pastor didn't have any advance knowledge of Bach's music -
>but Bach had to balance the appropriateness of his texts with
>the availability of musicians - sounds like quite a task - so
>I'm thinking that maybe a lot of arias had to be transposed at
>the last minute subject to the availability of voices. I'm
>thinking that movements must also have often been deleted at the
>last minute. I realize this is all conjecture, but I can't help
>feeling like we've opened up a picture of Bach's creative
>process - cantatas taking shape over a period of time in bach's
>mind, with his knowledge of what texts would be used, and at the
>end being written down for the musical forces at hand - there
>was often a librettist involved, too. ...
>Joel
>
>At 09:20 AM 07/06/2000 -0500, John Alexander Blyth wrote:
>>The particular Sundays would have their traditional readings. I'm pretty
>>sure the pastor would have stuck to religious matters rather than the
>>social and political excursions one might expect of a 20th century
>>Protestant minister. He would also likely have written it down and
>>rehearsed it according to the principles of rhetoric, quite a while before
>>the occasion. I think. john
>>
>>
>>At 01:35 AM 7/6/00 -0700, you wrote:
>>...>
>> >What I'm wondering is how he managed to get it all to happen on
>> >the right days. Most of the cyclical cantatas are for particular
>> >sundays - based on the text that was being preached on that particular
>> >day.... large task...
>>
>>John Blyth
>>Baritono robusto e lirico
>>Brandon, Manitoba, Canada
>
>
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John Blyth
Baritono robusto e lirico
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada
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