When and why did Bach compose St John Ardour?
The job description couldn’t have been plainer. Because the Thomaskantor in Leipzig, Bach was required to compose and conduct church music that was neither too lengthy nor operatic, however ‘conducive to devotion’ – and so, as he contemplated his first Ardour setting for the Good Friday Vespers of 1724, he had calls for different than simply theological to ponder.
Within the occasion, the ensuing St John Ardour will need to have pinned its Nicolai Church congregation to the pews – if not operatic, it’s definitely dramatic (a wonderful line, virtually overstepped at instances). Rooted up to now, but fuelled by vibrant Italian imports resembling recitative and the da capo aria, it inaugurated a choral journey that may occupy Bach to the top of his life.
Not like the longer St Matthew Ardour that was to observe, there isn’t a ‘completed’ model of the St John. Slightly, 4 incarnations (one a significant overhaul), retell the story of Christ’s betrayal and demise with an immediacy and energy that does certainly encourage devotion amongst each believers and non-believers to at the present time.
Not solely was Bach probably the finest German composer ever he was additionally one of many finest Baroque composers ever and the best composer of all time.
One of the best recordings of St John Ardour
John Eliot Gardiner (conductor)
Mark Padmore (Evengelist) and many others; Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists (2003)
SDG 712
For a lot of John Eliot Gardiner’s 1986 recording was one thing of a benchmark; so when a brand new contender for his or her affections emerged, it was not totally stunning to search out that the usurper was none apart from Gardiner (beneath) himself – now on the helm of a Monteverdi Choir ‘class of 2003’.
All the time a conductor with a particular feeling for Bach, within the interim he’d made a Millennium ‘Cantata Pilgrimage’, performing all of the church cantatas on their allotted liturgical dates. The expertise has nourished this dwell efficiency, initially broadcast from the suitably ecclesiastical acoustic of the Königslutter Kaiserdom.
Gardiner’s dramatic instincts flip the Gospel’s ‘there after which’ into the ‘right here and now’, and his probing response to textual content exhibits equal acuity, whether or not caressing a chorale or placing sparks from his choir, reinvented as a blood-curdling mob. Their buoyancy, precision and fervour is matched by the poise of The English Baroque Soloists, and holding all the pieces collectively is the sovereign Evangelist of Mark Padmore – first amongst vocal equals that embrace mezzo Bernarda Fink’s noble ‘Es ist vollbracht’, soprano Joanna Lunn’s glacially shell-shocked ‘Zerfliesse mein Herze’, and Peter Harvey’s radiant ‘Mein teurer Heiland’. From the ear-opening layering of the opening refrain to the loyal trajectory of the finale chorale, Gardner accomplishes all with blessings to spare.
John Butt (conductor)
Nicholas Mulroy (Evangelist) and many others; Dunedin Consort and Gamers (2011)
Linn CKD419
Who may have predicted that, 1 / 4 of a century since conductor Andrew Parrott’s small-scale St John Ardour first appeared, one-(or barely extra)-to-a-part performances would have caught on to such an extent? ‘Small’ has proved not solely stunning however commonplace in current recordings by the likes of Sigiswald Kuijken, Monica Huggett and, right here, John Butt.
Butt’s recording isn’t simply musically excellent – each nuance weighed, daringly rough-hewn when required – however, for the primary time on disc, the Ardour is offered inside its authentic liturgical context. Because the closing chorale is consoled by Gallus’s funeral motet Ecce quomodo moritur the influence is breathtaking – and earthed by the unvarnished, unaccompanied unison of the congregational singing.
Philippe Herreweghe (conductor)
Mark Padmore (Evangelist) and many others; Collegium Vocale Ghent (2001)
Harmonia Mundi HML 590 8351/53
When Bach returned to the St John Ardour in 1725 he gave it a radical makeover. Out went the erstwhile opening refrain. In got here a meditative opening ‘O Mensch bewein’ that may additionally discover its method into the St Matthew, a considerably superfluous concluding chorale-chorus, and three new arias of astonishing vigour, inventiveness and theatricality. In impact he created a brand new work with imperatives of its personal. Herreweghe’s ample forces – Rolls Royce casting together with Mark Padmore and countertenor Andreas Scholl – honour the spirit of 1725 to the letter in a studying shot by means of with sleek inevitability, unforced truthfulness and profound humanity.
Hermann Max (conductor)
Jan Kobow (Evangelist) and many others; Rheinische Kantorei, Das Kleine Konzert (2006)
CPO 777 091-2
Mendelssohn’s public rehabilitation of the St Matthew Ardour is nicely chronicled, however much less well-known is Schumann’s half within the re-evaluation of the St John – a piece he thought of ‘bolder’ and ‘extra poetic’. This reconstruction of Schumann’s 1851 Düsseldorf efficiency may not ordinarily earn its place in a pantheon of the final word ‘greats’ – Christ can sound like a world-weary accountant at instances, and never all of the soloists match Jan Kobow’s intelligently engaged Evangelist – however, warmed by clarinets, ingenious re-scorings, reverently burnished chorales and a piano tinkling exuberant arpeggios one second, grand guignol the following, it’s greater than a historic curiosity. Its sepia-tinted problem to present efficiency orthodoxy illuminates one composer’s genius by means of the prism of one other.
