These program notes were written by Elise Groves for a program of Bach works for solo cello, harpsichord, and organ presented by The Bach Project in conjunction with Ashmont Hill Chamber Music on May 16, 2021.
What do you do when that thing you have been trained to do and are highly skilled at is suddenly not available, extremely difficult, or even prohibited? For the last 14 months, musicians the world over have been struggling with this exact question. Should they wait it out, hoping that mass vaccination will work, audiences will return, and the institutions that once nurtured a musical culture will continue to do so? Should they find a new way to make a living and abandon music entirely?
1717 was a challenging year for 32-year-old Bach. After five years in Weimar, Bach found himself caught in the crossfire between Wilhelm Ernst and his nephew Ernst August, dukes of Saxe-Weimar. Bach was successful in obtaining a new position in Köthen but Duke Wilhelm refused to release Bach from his employment in Weimar, even going so far as to imprison him for a month before dismissing him in disgrace. The move to Köthen was an improvement for Bach and his family, but his new employer was a Calvinist and had no need for Bach’s talents as a composer of music for Lutheran services. Bach had taken the job deliberately – Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen was a musician himself and held Bach in great esteem, religious differences notwithstanding – but Bach would have to take a hiatus from sacred composition.
The suites for cello were probably composed during his first few years in Köthen and are among the best-known instrumental works of Bach, largely due to the recordings of Pablo Casals. From our soloist:
The key of E flat is not the friendliest key for the cello; in fact, of all 6 of Bach’s cello suites, the Suite No. 4 in E-flat major, BWV 1010 is the LEAST friendly in terms of how the music sits on the instrument! There’s something really special about hearing qualities of grace, joy, and wild abandon emerge from all the effort that goes into wrangling the instrument in this key. There’s also a pathos to the more dissonant, pleading, brooding moments of the work, that resonates with an especially dark timbre in this key. I see these qualities as a metaphor for great beauty emerging from a tumultuous and difficult time. I find this piece to be full of bold optimism, and it this quality that made me think it might provide a bright moment for listeners as we emerge from a challenging time period and welcome Spring. I hope that hearing this work performed at this moment in time can be a moment of cleansing and catharsis, a meditation on this new moment after all that we’ve endured and overcome this past year. -- Shirley Hunt, cellist
In the absence of any required compositions for the church, Bach’s compositional energies during this time were spent on secular music. He immersed himself in instrumental genres for both ensembles and soloists with a special focus on the dance suite. The dance suites of Bach’s era were a hybrid of earlier French court entertainment and the requirements of publishers who had their own opinions about the order of movements and would rearrange them regardless of the composer’s intentions. Because of this, Bach wrote his suites in “publisher standard” order. The core of the dance suite was the Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, and Gigue, with composers generally adding one of several optional dances before the concluding Gigue.
Lest we think that Bach made a simple “pivot” in his musical career and carried on with no problems, his six years in Köthen were marked by significant upheaval. In 1720 Bach returned from a two-month trip with his employer to discover his wife Maria Barbara had died and already been buried. Bach was now a single father with four children. He married Anna Magdalena in 1721, and thus began a partnership that would prove beneficial for both Bach and for us – not only is our knowledge of the cello suites a direct result of a handwritten copy she made, the first few measures of the Suite No. 5 in G major, BWV 816 were written for her. The label “French” for this set of suites was not used in Bach’s lifetime, and mainly serves to distinguish them from his “English” suites and the partitas. Neither the French nor English suites are particularly “French” or “English”, and in fact the Suite No. 5 could be the most Italianate of all of them. Each of the dances in a suite had a different national origin as well, giving the dance suite a truly cosmopolitan flavor. Everything about this suite expresses optimism, happiness, and a freshness of perspective. Bach’s choice of G major also reflects the joy that he found with Anna Magdalena:
“Everything rustic, idyllic, and lyrical, every calm and satisfied passion, every tender gratitude for true friendship and faithful love, - in a word every gentle and peaceful emotion the heart is correctly expressed by this key.”
– Ideen zu einer Aesthetic der Tonkunst by Christian Schubart, translated by Rita Steblin.
It was a very different Bach who took up the position in Leipzig in 1723 at the age of 38. The time in Köthen had taken its toll. He had been widowed, remarried, welcomed and lost children, been highly esteemed and then shut out because of court politics. Despite these difficulties, Bach had cause for optimism. The appointment in Leipzig returned him to the world of sacred music. As the Thomaskantor, he directed the school at St. Thomas Church, which provided music for four churches in the city of Leipzig. Leipzig was a merchant city, and Bach answered to the town council rather than to a prince (or two feuding dukes). This period in his life would have its share of drama, employment woes, and professional successes (par for the course in the life of any musician) but would be more stable than either Weimar or Köthen.
In the late 1720s, Bach reworked many of his prior compositions and compiled them into a collection of six sonatas for organ. Part technique study and pedagogical tool, they were probably intended for his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, whose transcription of them was completed by Anna Magdalena, but were played by many of Bach’s students. The trio sonata was originally a genre featuring two solo instruments with continuo accompaniment, but in the Trio Sonata No. 4 in E minor, BWV 528 as well as the other organ trio sonatas, Bach assigns all three parts to the organist, intending for the two solo lines to be a dialogue between the organist’s hands while their feet provide the continuo. The “Little” Fugue in G minor, BWV 578 was written much earlier in Bach’s life when he was working in Arnstadt between 1703-1707. One of his best-known pieces, it has been transcribed for orchestra, brass quintet, wind band, and many other combinations. The fugue subject is both simple and also infectious – many a musician has suffered with this as an “earworm”.
For many musicians, as small children we are taken with the idea of being the soloist – the soloist is the one who captures the attention on stage and what child doesn’t wish to be the center of attention from time to time? Much of our training is soloistic in nature, since we not only learn solo repertoire for our specific instrument but also since the hours of practicing are usually a solitary pursuit. It is only later that we learn the joys of ensemble performing – making music with friends and colleagues, being a part of something greater than what one can achieve alone – and for many that becomes a parallel part of their career.
In the past year, however, we have found ourselves alone again. With most ensemble performances either too logistically challenging, expensive, and/or potentially unsafe to organize, solo performing has been our refuge. Unlike ensemble music which provides us with access to that which is beyond the individual, solo music provides the opportunity for introspection, taking us on a personal journey through our own highs and lows. It has been our way to create art and beauty amidst significant loss. We look forward to returning to a mix of solo and ensemble performances next season and we hope you will join us in person then!
Elise Groves, May 2021