Stephen:  Thank you for such a wonderful and human reaction to the majesty of Bach's music and the spaces for which he composed it.  But with respect, I have to question your writing:  "Who performed?  (certainly unwashed boys were not the soloists), how many players and singers, and where they would hav been in St. Thomas's considerable spaces?"

 

Leaving aside whether Bach's boys were washed or not, what reason could you possibly have for thinking they were not his soloists, when he makes it rather clear in his 1731 memo to the Town Council that they certainly were?!!!  Surely you don't think he snuck women into the church as soloists, which would have been strictly forbidden!  Or that singers from the Leipzig Opera would have been engaged as soloists (since he certainly would have mentioned the need for such funding in his memo--which was written well after the St. Matthew premiered.  A bigger question is who his tenors and basses were.

 

The fact is that all ensembles were small.  The fact is that while Handel, in London, could hire (AND PAY!) soloists, Bach certainly could not, and one thing we DO know is that there were generally 2 copies made of each voice part, one with both chorus and arias and one with just chorus.  He did NOT hire opera singers as soloists.  And the fact is that all early music, by modern standards, was small and essentially chamber music.  (Even Handel's Water and Fireworks music were played by ensembles much smaller than the average modern concert band!)  Bach told us (more or less) what he considered the desireable size for both his choir and his orchestra in that memo, and they were SMALL!  And when he chose to write for double chorus and double orchestra, he certainly would not have gone out and hired extra musicians.  He would have subdivided those that were regularly available to him for special occasions (which the Good Friday services certainly were). 

 

As to placement within the church, since I've never seen it, your opinion is far more likely to be accurate than mine.  But don't get sidetracked by trying to imagine huge modern forces in the church.  Picture about 20 in the choir and the same number in the orchestra, and then subdivide them.  Obviously, whatever his complaints, those choirboys were very well trained and capable!  Again, think chamber music!  It was not music intended to overpower, but to impress with a complexity representing God's creation.

 

All the best,

John

 

 

 

 

 Stephen, thanks for asking the question, because it then gives rise to the answer so well written by John.    In our modern world of trying to shock and awe people in churches, and almost create a spectacle; Bach opted to show them the wonder of God's creation by revealing it naturally through the beauty of art.   Let the beauty of the music speak, not trying to have the largest choir.    It reminds us all, that simply having numbers and the biggest choir loft in town, isn't what it is about.  The music, and the IMAGO DEI is what Bach was focusing on.    The last sentence of John's response I plan to use and well said,   overpower NO, but demonstrate who God truly is.   Not the cotton candy image that sometimes is sold in our mega-churches, but the God who says LOVE YOUR ENEMIES and then goes out and forgives those who put him on a cross.....      In reading up on another historic church musician, Samuel Wesley wrote a wonderful Easter Anthem,  Blessed be the God, and Father....    when heard on a recording it is with larger choirs, but in reality, the forces he had at hand were quite small and that is what it was written for, a smaller group.   I think that while it is important to understand historical context and be honest with it, the fact that a small or large choirs still perform these works, is a testament to WHY the work was created in the first place, again to John's last sentence.   Not to overpower, but to show God for who he is.   

Kevin G. Lindsay

 

 

 

Thanks, John,

  I translated Georg Schünemann's Das Geschichite des Dirigirens (1904)  and I remember Bach's complaints, especially what he called the many poorly tuned. notes at the beginning of every piece which he called Hundetöne (dog tones).  I recall Rifkin's controversial assertions about B minor Mass (?) being performed by a double quartet of mixed voices. And I supposed much smaller forces than I heard in Cortland, so chamber music was in my mind and in my training and preferences. But I was so stunned by Liann Coble's performance of "For Love My Savior is Dying" (I have NEVER heard such embodiment of overwhelming sadness, I had misconstrued that a boy could ever sing this. Thanks for the clarification and the slap of reality.

My real concern, therefore, is the disposition of the forces prompted by my incomplete view of the loft space. But I am fairly certain that chamber forces could be held there. I was hoping for further sense of the performance space at Thomaskirche. I really would like them to stop hovering in my mind like Hogwarts' Nearly Headless Nick.

 

FYI, the present interior of the Thomaskirche only dates to the 1880s.  The interior of the church in Bach's time was completely different than it is today, as it had beed decorated in the baroque style.  It was also renovated during Bach's tenure (in 1732), during which it would have had even more baroque decorations applied.  The interior renovations make it difficult to imagine how Bach deployed his musical forces there.

I have had the supreme privilege of singing in the Thomaskirche. The gallery is quite large, and accommodated our 50+-voice choir with ease, and there was ample room also for a chamber orchestra. Of course, as Paul Slaughter said, the interior is different now than it was in Bach's time. I'm sure there is good information out there that describes his performing forces....sorry I have no time to look it up now as I am off to rehearsal. :-)

 

But I will add that one of the most musically and spiritually significant experiences I ever had was singing in a performance of Bach's St John Passion, on Maundy Thursday, in a choir of just 16 voices (4 each SATB) with one-on-a-part in the orchestra and some outstanding soloists.  Even the turba (crowd) scenes worked brilliantly, perhaps because we could deliver them with lacerating clarity. I've done the B Minor Mass with just 40 voices - superb. Of course, the smaller the choir, the surer the singers must be.

 

Sarah Hager Johnston

GraceNotes Writing

 

John et al

  I know that there are published examples and suppositions of Italianate opera ornamentation which nearly bury the source material ever deeper during the course of a composition until the da capo nearly lives a life of its own.

  Certainly, Bach would have tempered ornamentation in his high learned style at Thomaskirche and would never have countenenced, perhaps, even as much as Quantz would asked of the his royal pupil.

  I used to adjudicate scholarship contests with John Thomas, a flute teacher at Eastman.I launched into dissappointment that the flutest in question did not ornament at all but I quickly withdrew my barbs when Professor Thomas stamped out the hotspots in the ashes as he spit and hissed about Quantz. Still, I would have liked at least a trill from the uppor auxiliary at the final cadence.

  Still, there are ample examples in Donington, Quantz and even Papa Mozart to more than hint at the ornamentation of the time and appropriate venue. Certainly, as well, these improvizations would not be operatic but plangent.

S