St. Matthew Ardour on the Bach competition in Leipzig – DW – 11/16/2022

Yearly, some 70,000 folks descend on the jap German metropolis of Leipzig over the course of simply 10 days. The explanation? The Bach Competition. It is devoted to none apart from Johann Sebastian Bach and options live shows within the very areas he as soon as carried out.

On this DW Festival Concert, we get to listen to choices from a wonderful efficiency of the St. Matthew Ardour that occurred on June 17, 2022, on the Leipzig Bach Competition.

Andreas Reize, the brand new music director, the Thomaskantor of the Thomanerchor, or St. Thomas Choir, led the well-known boys’ choir, accompanied by the Academy for Early Music Berlin orchestra and soloists, delighting the viewers as they listened below the vaulted ceiling of St. Thomas Church.

Though the place of Thomaskantor has existed for over 600 years, the post-holders solely began being numbered after Bach. Meaning Bach was actually No. 1. And Reize, who took up the place in 2021, is at this time simply the 18th individual to function Thomaskantor some 300 years after Bach.

The St. Matthew Ardour

The St. Matthew Ardour has two components. The primary begins with Judas betraying Jesus to the excessive monks and ends with Jesus being taken prisoner. Within the second, Jesus is tried, denied by Peter, crucified and buried.

Bach in all probability premiered the work in 1727. However Andreas Reize determined to make use of a later model: “The model that tends to be carried out at this time is the model from 1736, which we’ve got as an unique handwritten rating, superbly written.”

Nonetheless the three hundredth anniversary of the unique efficiency will even be marked: “Although it isn’t completely clear, we usually assume that the premiere occurred in 1727. That is why we’ll have an enormous celebration in 2027 in Leipzig, in addition to elsewhere on this planet.”

The St. Matthew Ardour is Bach’s largest orchestral work and funnily sufficient, he at all times composed Jesus as a bass voice. The music requires a number of soloists, two choirs and two orchestras, and has develop into a crown jewel of Protestant church music.

The textual content of the eagerness is usually based mostly on the Gospel of Matthew and church songs, however some arias additionally embrace verses penned by the author Friedrich Henrici below the pseudonym “Picander.” He was a up to date of Bach, and the composer regarded him very extremely, although, apparently, the author was recognized for comedies that includes tasteless gags and improper jokes. Bach is claimed to have laid out strict pointers for his aria lyrics.

Michael Maul, the director of the Leipzig Bach Competition, even describes the work as a “musical marvel of the world”: In Bach’s time, all of it occurred within the Good Friday vesper service. Meaning there have been three hours of music, and most certainly additionally an hour-long sermon and the liturgy. The entire thing in all probability lasted round 5 hours. It is unlucky we do not know the way folks reacted to it on the time; there’s nothing written, so we do not know whether or not folks appreciated it or not.”

One in all two Easter passions

Bach’s vocal works, together with the St. Matthew Ardour, fell into obscurity after his dying in 1750. It was solely within the nineteenth century that his cantatas, oratorios and passions began making a comeback, thanks largely to a different composer: Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.

In 1826, Mendelssohn led a big orchestra in a shortened model of the St. Matthew Ardour, reintroducing the work to an viewers that responded enthusiastically.

The St. Matthew Ardour piece is one in all two Easter passions that Bach composed, the opposite being his St. John Ardour, and collectively, they make up his solely full surviving passions. Bach wrote the St. John Ardour through the starting of his time because the Thomaskantor of the St Thomas Choir in Leipzig, and he premiered the piece in 1724. The St. Matthew Ardour got here later and is taken into account to be a extra mature and emotional composition.

This text was initially written in German.