Bach's Vocal Scoring: What Can It Mean? Author(s): John Butt Reviewed work(s): Source: Early Music, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Feb., 1998), pp. 99-107 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3128552 . Accessed: 22/02/2012 12:13 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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John Butt

Bach'svocal scoring:what can it mean? HE public debate over Bach's chorus began in Koopman,a'choralist'fiercelyjustifyinghis ongoing print in 1982. The primary actors were Joshua 'historicallycorrect'recordingof the Bach cantatas, Rifkin, arguingthat Bach seems to have performed brings up the usual objections to the Rifkin hypothe majorityof his choralworkswith one singerto a thesis: the evidence of the Entwurfftakes primary part, and RobertMarshall,arguingthat Bach'sletter position, bolstered by other external evidence for to the Leipzigtown council in 1730 (Entwurff)states larger choirs, speculations regarding the loss of unequivocally that Bach desired-and probably parts, performancefrom memory, unnotated congot-three or four singers per part.' Marshallwas ventions of performanceand many other nuggets of joined by many other voices during the later 198os, 'common sense'.I am loath to enterfull-frontedinto all producingcircumstantialevidence for largerper- the dispute again:tempersarevery high and the risk forming forces. I have tried to show that a varietyof of repeating oneself or recapitulatinga previous choral scoringswere feasiblein Bach'stime, includ- stagein the debateis almost unavoidable.So, I'd like ing both single and multiple voices to a part, and I to approachthe issue from severaldifferentangles, have also suggestedthat no scholar has reallyman- examining first the role of scholars and performers aged to challengeRifkin on the specific territoryof today, the ideologies that may underpin the heat of his argument, the format and interrelationshipof the dispute and, finally, some questions that have the original performing parts. Moreover, Ulrich not been askedregardingthe Rifkinhypothesis:how Siegele'sextensive study of the political situation of does the indisputablefact that the 'soloist' in each Leipzigin Bach'stime suggeststhat Bach wrote the part sang most, if not all, of the music within his Entwurffaspart of an ongoing campaign(supported rangeaffectthe meaning, or rather,the potential for by one faction of the town council) to redefine his meaning in the sacredvocal music of Bach?(Here I post as that of a professional Kapellmeisterrather shall concentrate on the two Passions.) How does than as a Kantor-schoolmaster.The document may the performanceboth present and interpretwhat is partlybe a justificationof Bach'srecent appropria- often a complex of textual strandsand religioustration of the Leipzig collegiummusicum and is also ditions?It seems to me that the quest for an 'original greatly concerned with establishinga stronger bias performance practice' is curiously barren if sepatowardsmusic in the school's admissionspolicy.3In ratedfrom the originalfunction of the music, indeed short, it is clear that the document should not be from the notion of an 'originalaudience'. read at face value as an unequivocal expression of AndrewParrottdespairinglychallengesthe scholBach'sestablishedperformancepractice. arlycommunityto show more sense of responsibility The dispute has flared up afresh in the pages of by breaking its silence over this issue, noting 'the Early music. The ground has shifted little since the continuing failureof the professionalmusical world debate began over 15 years ago: Rifkin, now ably (performers,promoters,critics and especiallymusiAndrew from the Parrott,arguesprimarily joined by cologists) to engage with-let alone come to terms evidence of the manuscript sources, while Ton with-a vital and fascinating area of study ... The

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John Butt has recentlyreturnedto Englandfrom Berkeley,California,and is now a lecturerat the Universityof Cambridgeand a Fellowof King'sCollege. EARLY MUSIC

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extraordinaryprevalence of such apathy prompts the uncomfortablequestion:who cares?'4He also assumes that virtuallyno establishedscholars accept Rifkin'sfindings.5While this is a fair assessmentof the published literature,I have, in fact, observed a considerable shift in favour of Rifkin's position among the younger scholarswithin the community of American Bach scholars over the last few years, and even some of the more vociferous opponents have become remarkablymore muted in their criticism.6 There are even rumours of Bach scholars in Germanypaying more attention to Rifkin'stheory. If I am correct in this hunch, the reason for this changemay not be merelythat more scholarsare examining the Bach sources in greaterdetail and following through Rifkin'sreasoning with the manuscripts to hand; it may well be that there is a fundamentalchange in the attitudetowardshistoricallyinformedperformanceand its relationto scholarship.7 To simplify the issue somewhat crudely, in the early 1980s most historically informed performers took what evidencethey could from the sourcesand followed it, more or less literally.Scholars,to the extent that they were involved with issues of performance, were to provide empirical evidence, to be discussed and sifted through, and, if found to be sound, to be adoptedby the performer.Todaythese relationships and roles seem considerably more complex;some scholarsand performerstend to take a more critical stance towards whatever evidence emerges:did a composerget exactlywhat he desired? Did he tolerate what he got? Did he have only a single intention for performance?Are we to accept his intentions-presuming we know them-at face value?Are there factors other than the composer's desiresthat should be taken into account? In short, I believe it is now possible to adhereto a general notion of historically informed performance, to acknowledgethe likelihood of a theory such as Rifkin's,yet still not alwaysfeel compelledto follow it in practice. For instance, there are many things about singing style in Bach's environment that we do not-indeed cannot-know. Furthermore, the 'instruments'do not necessarilyexist, in the sense that there are no trainedmales in their late teens with unbroken voices. We can only guess at 100

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whateverconceptionsof text and music these singers held, how close they came to the trained operatic singers of the age. One-to-a-part performances today may tell us much about Bach's choral music but they might not come any nearer to the actual sound of Bach'sperformances.And, giventhe sort of professional singers availabletoday, many are unsuitable for this kind of activity and some who are able to accept the work do so only grudgingly.In other words, to perform Bach'schoralworks with a small vocal group-as does Ton Koopman-certainlydoes not contravenetypicalpracticesof Bach's day, and, being part of our existingculture,it carries with it a sparkof 'authenticity'(in the sense of immediacy, familiarity and performer identity; and, one might add, the conductor's belief that he is right!) that would parallelthat of the original performers. Thus, the correct scoring with the wrong sound, attitude and a sense of alienation is hardly more correctthan the wrong scoringtogetherwith a readyfluency and identificationwith an established practice.This is not to condemn the one-to-a-part performancesof Rifkinand Parrott-most areexcellent and extremely revealing-but to suggest that this method should hardly become a norm for the entire field of Bach performancewithout more familiarity with the practice and more availableand willing performers.Parrott'srecordingof Bach's St John Passion shows an excellent and imaginative synthesis ('compromise' would sound too noncommittal) between historicalpractice and current traditions and practices. He adds single boy 'ripienists' (from the Tolzer Knabenchor)to the female 'concertists' in the soprano and alto parts of the choruses. The result may not necessarilyapproach the sound Bach heard, but it shows how historical considerationscan be reinterpretedwithin the context of what is both possibleand excellentwithin our own traditionsand resources. Beforelooking at the hermeneuticimplicationsof Rifkin'sconception of Bach'sscoring I shall outline what I believeto be the most crucialfactorsof his argument. First, there is no way of establishing whetheror not Bach'ssingerssharedtheir individual partspurelyon the basis of externalevidence (unless an unambiguousaccount of their regularpracticeis discovered). As Parrott reminds us, the concertist

parts in Bach's Passions contain most of the vocal materialwithin their range (whetherchoir 1 or 2, in the St MatthewPassion);moreoverthe partsused by the Evangelistand Christin both Passionsare generally titled 'Evangelista'and Christus'.sIt is technically feasible that other singers could have looked on, and that one short rehearsalmay have told them when to sing and when to be silent, but, given the performancedetailof Bach'spartsin general(e.g. indications of ornaments, dynamics and articulation) it seems surprising that the simple and far more basic indications of solo and tutti are generallyabsent. More likely Bach would have given separate parts to the extrasingersdoubling chorus lines, as is indeed the case for the St John Passion, one of the handful of pieces to survivewith ripieno parts.Now, one obvious direction in which to argueis that such doublingwas Bach'sstandardpracticeand countless ripieno partsmay simply have disappeared.9 It is impossible to disprove this possibility but those who 'hope' for the discovery of these lost parts generally do so under the common-sense assumption that Bach, like most of us today, would have wanted to use any sparesingerswho happened to be around to bolster the choir for the chorales and choruses.Yet here Rifkinproduceswhat for me was the coupe de grace: 'bit' parts in the Passions generally contain only their own particular roles, and surroundingchoruses and chorales are usually marked 'tacet'.1o This phenomenon is evident in the

St Matthew Passion part for Peter, Caiphas, Pontifex 2 and Pilate (all presumablytaken by the one singer)," and in the separate parts for the servant and Pilate in the St John Passion. Arthur Mendel, editor of the Neue Bach-Ausgabevolume of the St John Passion, notes that these tacet markings are eigentiimlich('peculiar') without commenting further.2 To explain away evidence such as this simply takes one too far beyond the bounds of reasonable historical scholarship:for instance, one could conjecture that the 'bit' parts were placed at too greata distance to participate with the other subsidiary singers in the choruses and chorales (and this must have been a very long way, to have disqualified them from the chorales); or perhaps they otherwise played instruments and needed the references to other movements, complete with 'tacet' markings,

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to orient themselves in relation to their instrumental parts. My own examination of the autograph score of the St MatthewPassion revealsan interestingdirection from Bach that may be the closest we have to verbal evidence of the one-to-a-part scoring. The duet with chorus, 'So ist mein Jesu nun gefangen' runs into the double chorus 'Sind Blitze, sind Donner' and the latter begins on the last system (seven staves) of a verso page, which also contains the last two bars of 'So ist mein Jesu'. Given that these seven staves will not accommodate the two continuo lines, and the two bass and tenor lines that

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open the chorus (the ensuing page gives the standard double-choir format), the first two vocal entries and the continuo line are written on single staves (illus.1). The opening bass entry is marked 'Basso 1 Chori/Basso2 Chori [con]cord.', the next, tenor, entry has the marking'due Tenori',while the continuo line is marked 'tutti li Bassi in unisono'. These markings seem entirely consistent with a chorus that had one singer to a part and a continuo section with (at least) a violoncello, violone and organ on each line; if 'tutti' is appropriatefor indicating the amalgamation of two continuo lines (making a total of about six players) this would

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surely have been used to denote a choral line that likewise had about six singersto a part. If it is accepted that a work like the St Matthew Passion was performedwith single voices, this tells us somethingabout the way the chorallines could be projected, perhaps with more soloistic flair than a choralscoringwould normallyimply. As I have suggestedbefore, much of Bach'schoralmusic could be consideredto work more in the traditionof the Italian/Germansacredconcerto than in that of the German motet, for which multiplevoices were more the norm.13The concertotradition,as most famouslyexpounded for a Germanaudienceby MichaelPraetorius, is fundamentally a soloistic genre to which doubling voices can sometimes be added, yet these ripienists never constitute a fundamental group in their own right. While Bach seems to have done without the doubling voices in the St Matthew Passion he did, in fact, use them in the St John.This difference is somewhat strange given that the choral lines of the latter are more virtuoso (and thus more soloistic?). However, the assumption that Bach probablywished to combine the resourcesof his first and second choirsis probablycorrect.14 Certainlythe doubled scoringfacilitatesthe performanceof 'Mein teurerHeiland',in which the solo basssings from the concertist bass part while the ripieno bass, singing from the ripieno part, provides the bass line to the chorale which is sung simultaneously.We can surmise that the two Passions seem to have had choirs of equal weight, although that of the St Matthew often splits into two. More significantly,these cases suggest that it was not absolutely crucial to Bach whether the choral lines were sung either one-to-apartor more than one-to-a-part.The lesson for us is, rather,that these chorallines were essentiallysoloisticallyconceived,howevermany singersmight actually have realizedthem (difficultas this may seem in the context of today's psychology of performance, when singers, at all levels, will insist on an essential differencebetween solo and doubled realizationof chorallines). The entire debate about vocal scoring brings up another issue, one which takes us outside of the usual discussions about the technicalitiesof performance. This arises when we consider Ton Koopman's remark about the bass part of 'Mein teurer

Heiland' in the St John Passion. To him it seems patently absurd that the bass who has just 'died' as the figureof Christshould now, readingoff the same part, sing the bass line of the aria. There must, he says, have been two concertistsreadingoff the part, one singing Christ and the other the other solos.15 Yet if Bach went to the trouble to preparefour ripieno parts to be used separatelyfrom the concertist parts, and the parts of the servantand Pilate appear in dedicated parts (containing no other music), it would seem strangethat he did not preparetwo, differentiated, concertist bass parts (furthermore, it should be remembered,Bach'sconcertistbass parts for both Passionsare marked'Christus'). In short, the idea that the bass who sang the part of Christ sang nothing else is not substantiated by the sources and there is no reason to think that the Passions were designed like operas with clearly differentiatedcharacterroles. After all, the actual part of Peter in both Passions is extremely simple (presumably sung by an inexperienced singer?), while his weeping is elaborately depicted by the Evangelistand his personal sorrow rendered both intimate and universal in the ensuing arias ('Ach, mein Sinn', found in the Evangelistpart of the St John Passion, 'Erbarmedich' in the concertist alto part of the St Matthew). If these works were operas, one would expect the sorrow and reflection to be confined to the one character, Peter. Handel's 'Brockes Passion', for instance, as a non-liturgical Passion-oratoriofollows the operaticconventions of oratorioin which the minor roles aredevelopedinto substantialcharacters.Here Peter himself sings two remorseful arias after the cock-crow ('Heul, du Fluch!'and 'Schau,ich fall'in strengerBute'), introducing and separatingthem with his own reflective recitatives. Points such as these suggest that Bach's Passions-however operatic in style and affect-were never conceived along operatic lines. Indeed, they were never isolated musical works to be enjoyed outside their liturgical environment. Performed on either side of the sermon for Good FridayVespers, they were vehicles of preaching rather than entertainment.They were designed not only to present the most importantGospeltext of the year (thus takingthe place of the Gospelreading)but also to be EARLY

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profoundlyinterpretative.In the Lutherantradition any reading of the Bible was considered alreadyan and Bach and his librettistsseem to interpretation,16 have gone out of their way to embellish the story rhetorically,to drivehome theologicalpoints and to guide the meditationof the congregation.Giventhat many performersand scholarsare squeamishwhen it comes to the fundamentallyreligious function of Bach's church music, it is not surprisingthat they have sought refuge in examining literalisticallythe technical fundamentals of notation and performance practice. Furthermore,studies that take a hermeneuticapproachto Bach'smusic and texts are often easy prey to scepticism, particularlyif they show any signs at all of scholarlyweaknesson a factual level.'7 However, it is clear that essential elements of Lutherandoctrine are articulatedin Bach's Passion texts and, at the very least, the vocal scoring (as suggested by the format of the originalparts) resonates with this approach.Lutherstatedat the outset of his Passion sermons of 1519and 1521 that it is wrong to blame others-such as Judas and the Jews, collectively-for the death of Christ since, as sinners alThis attiways alreadyfallen, we are all to blame.'"8 tude might give us a clue as to why Bach gave the parts of Peter in both Passions (and Judasin the St Matthew) to singerswho participatein none of the choruses, choralesor arias.Their partsbecome featureless-virtually anonymous- while the sorrow of their betrayalsis vividlyportrayedin the Evangelist's depiction of weeping and in the arias sung by the concertists.In other words, their failureis universalized, passed from one singer to another, to show that it is a matterfor the generalhuman condition and not the personal tragedy of an individual sinner. As EricChafehas suggested,Bachmay have structured the St John Passion-somewhat oddly regarding its temporal proportions-to balance the cowardice of Peter in the first half with Pilate'sultimate failureof faith in the second. In the St MatthewPassion our own responsibility for the suffering of Christis heavilyemphasizedin the ariosos and arias of the first half (and reinforcedin the second with 'Erbarmedich') and our imitation of Christ in accepting our own suffering (usefully occasioned by 104

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the characterof Simon of Cyrene, the first human literallyto follow Christand bearhis cross) becomes an importanttopic in the second half. This, together with an intermediateemphasison Christ'sloving redemption, follows more or less the structure of Luther'sown meditation on the Passion.19Luther, feeling keenly his own persecution, stressed that Christ'sPassionshould not be acted out in words or appearancesbut in one's own life;20having acknowledged guilt and received Christ's loving redemption, all should foster their potential to imitate Christand be fearlessin the face of persecution. In all, it seems that Bach and his librettistswent out of their way to show how we could all become virtually any character in the Passion story, that human works often end in failure, that we are not predestinedto be damned or saved,but that contrition, faithin Christ'slove and the imitationof Christ arethe way forward.The multipleroles of the chorus are well known; indeed, this was a tradition in musicalsettingsof the PassionbeforeBach:the same group of people thus has the potential to be good, bad or indifferent.However,what is usuallymissed in performancestoday is the multiple role-playing on the part of the singer who sang the Evangelist, and-most importantly-Christ. First,the singerof Christin both Passionsalso has to be partof the crowd,regardlessof its mood (these roles being in the New Testamenttime zone). Furthermore,he sings in the Lutherantime zone of the chorale, and, finally, in the Leipzig present of the arias. His participationin the choruses (as the concertistbassin the St JohnPassionand as the sole bass in choir 1in the St Matthew)is verystrikingas he has constantlyto switch between the role of Christ and that of a crowd that frequentlycalls for 'his' own death. This helps to reinforcethe typicallyLutheran point that we are all to be held responsible for Christ's death, however Christ-like any of us may seem. Interestingly,the two bass arias in the St John Passion, and those for bass I (i.e. in the partlabelled 'Christus')in the St MatthewPassion come towards the end of the work when Christ is largelysilent or alreadydead.2'We now hear a singer who is sonically associatedwith Christas a human being trying to follow and imitate Christ, a remarkablypotent

and poignant move. In the aria 'Eilt, ihr angefochten Seelen' from the St John Passion Bach adaptsa text from B. H. Brockes:'Der ffir die Stinde der Welt gemartete und sterbende Jesus'.Here the singer exhorts the other three vocal parts to follow him to Golgotha. ('Hasten, you beleagueredsouls, Whither? ... Fly! Whither? To the mount of the

cross, Your welfaredoth flourish there!') There is a sense that the bass, as an imitator of Christ, is alreadyat Golgotha and consequentlyknows more about the salvation that can be achievedby following Christ. Brockes wrote the original text for the allegorical character,the 'daughter of Zion', thus suggestingthe use of a high, female voice (as Handel does in his setting). Given the popularity of Brockes' text, Bach undoubtedly knew of it in its original form (indeed, he probablymade the selections from it himself) and must have had conscious reasons for reassigningit to bass. As Ton Koopman has noted, the bass aria with chorale, 'Mein teurer Heiland', comes at precisely the moment afterJesusdies, but the notion that it is sung by the same singer who performedthe part of Christis not necessarilyabsurd.First,one of the centralpoints of St John'sGospelis the view of Christas divine from the start and that his resurrectionand victoryareall preordained,the mechanicalmeans by which we achieve salvation. In this aria, the singer who has just playedthe part of Christnow speaksas a human who asks if the process of salvationhas indeed been achievedthrough Christ'sdeath.With the line 'Es is vollbracht, bin ich vom Sterben freigemacht?'('It is fulfilled,am I freed from death?'),the sense of the singer'ssalvationis particularlystrong; having just 'died' he now has the means towards eternallife, he is 'freedfrom death'both as a human being and as Christ himself. Moreover, the accompanying chorale begins with the lines 'Jesu, der du warest tot, lebest nun ohn Ende' ('Jesu, you who were dead now live without end') addressedby the entire chorus of singersto the very singerwho took the part of Christ.At the very moment of his death, his resurrectionand immortalityare thus assured. In the St Matthew Passion we see Christ as more of a vulnerable human being; his eternal divinity is not so obvious as in St John's Gospel (in the synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, Christ's

divinity is revealed more according to a temporal 'timetable'with its climax at the resurrection).Picander, Bach's librettist, places a great emphasis on Christ'ssupremelove and the very human aspect of his suffering. This may reflect the influence of the early-enlightenmentmove away from Christ as the instrumentwho satisfiesthe wrath of an angryGod towards a focus on the relation between a loving Christ and the human being, the conception of Christas an ideal model of humanity.22 Imitation of Christ is the central theme of the first bass 1 aria from the St MatthewPassion, 'Komm, stites Kreuz' ('Come, sweet cross, I will say, my Jesus,just put it on me! Should my pain become too heavy, then help me to carryit Yourself.').This comes after the bass recitativeaccompagnato'Jafreilichwill in uns' ('Yes, gladly is the flesh and blood in us compelled to the cross;the more it benefits our souls, the more painfullyit weighs.').This pair of solos comes at the point at which Simon of Cyrene helps Christ bear the cross. Simon is, literally, the first human to carry Christ's burden, who-more than anyoneteaches us by example that if we imitate Christ he will reciprocallyhelp us in our travail.Thus the bass concertist makes his first appearanceas a soloist in the Leipzigpresent at preciselythe point at which a human being begins to imitate Christ.The fact that he has been imitating Christ for the entire Passion up to this juncture renders the point extremely strongly: the imitator of Christ in Leipzig takes strength from the first imitator of Christ in Jerusalem, and is thus heard by the congregation as a sort of Simon of Cyrenecharacter. The second bass 1 recitative-ariais the last such pair in the piece ('Am Abend, da es ktihle war'/ 'Mache dich, mein Herze, rein') and will thus make a particularlylastingimpression on the listener.The arioso makes referenceto the fact that Jesushas endured the cross, his body is at rest;the last lines run 'Bid them give me the dead Jesus.O healing, O precious keepsake.'The aria goes on to plead more for this 'keepsake',with the words 'I will myself entomb Jesus.For He shall henceforthin me take His sweet rest for ever and ever'.The rhetoricalforce of someone singing about henceforth containing Christ, when he has just indeed been actingthroughthe last moments of his saviour's life, is undoubtedly very EARLY

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strong. Our overworkedsinger provides us with a model of faith which furtherencouragesus to take on Christas a model of human perfection. If Bach'sPassionsdiffer from opera in their blurring of the distinctionsbetween differentpersonalities within the dramatizationthey also createa very different 'implied listener'. The implied listener of late Baroqueopera is likely to be a fairlystable figure sitting outside the action, excited, moved and calmed by what goes on but at a consistent distance in space and time. Operasare usuallywrittenwith a fixed point of view in mind, somewhat akin to the perspective in painting, a point from which the constant alternations between real and emotional time (i.e. recitativeand aria) are effortlesslyassimilated. In Bach's Passions, on the other hand, the constant changes of time zone and the fluidity of subjecthood would render the works baffling from an operatic standpoint.There is no longer a stable, objective implied listener as the action shuttles between real New Testament and an emotional present. While an operatic aria might address the listener in the abstract(e.g. about the value of hope or the destructiveness of jealousy) much of the poetic material in the Passions-derived as it is directly from sermon poetry-speaks directly to the individual listener. Moreover, this listener is 1 J. Rifkin, 'Bach's chorus: a preliminary report', Musical times, cxxiii (1982), pp.747-54; R. Marshall, 'Bach's chorus: a preliminary reply to Joshua Rifkin', Musical times, cxxiv (1983), pp.19-22. 2 J. Butt, Bach-Mass in B minor

(Cambridge, 1991)and Music education and the art of performancein the German Baroque (Cambridge, 1994), pp.lo6-13. For more on the vocal scoring in North German sacred concertos in the generation before Bach, see G. Webber, North German churchmusic in the age of Buxtehude (Oxford, 1996), esp. pp.175-80. Webber shows that the basic scoring of a piece (with solo singers alone) could often be expanded with ripienists for certain tuttis, and also with additional string parts for the middle of the texture (pp.103-4).

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enjoined to witness the drama silently, to be shocked, to experience remorse and to undergo personal (as opposed to sympathetic) emotional change. Just as the singers do, the listener undergoes constant fluctuations of subjectivity:at one moment a passive observer,powerless to intervene in the grim, relentlessaction, he or she is next part of a group within a tradition of worship and then an individualsinner who learns of salvation. HI short study suggestssomething of the way SBach's scoring of the Passions may have been designedto reinforcecertainaspectsof the Lutheran faith and create extra shades of meaning in the text and music. It may well be that these aspects of the scoring were more important to Bach than the difference of sound between one, two or three singers on a part.Whateverthe truthof my conjectures,they should at least suggestthat even if we get exactlythe same balanceof forcesthat Bachattainedor desired, the music will have little of the intended effect in the context of the largely agnostic world of historical performance. Only in the late 20th century has it been regularlyassumed that historical fidelity of sound somehow carrieswith it the fidelityof historical experience;this position is becoming increasingly difficultto uphold.

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3 U. Siegele, 'Bachs Stellung in der Leipziger Kulturpolitik seiner Zeit (Schluf)', Bach-Jahrbuch,lxxii (1986), pp.33-67, esp. p.45. See also his 'Bachs Endzweck einer regulierten und Entwurf einer wohlbestallten Kirchenmusik', FestschriftGeorgvon Dadelsen zum 6o. Geburtstag,ed. T. Kohlhase and V. Scherliess (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1978), pp.313-51.For a summary of the political situation in Saxony, see his 'Bach and the domestic politics of Electoral Saxony', Cambridgecompanion to Bach, ed. J. Butt (Cambridge, 1997), pp.17-34. 4 A. Parrott, 'Bach's chorus: who cares?',Early music, xxv (1997), p.3oo. 5 '... scholars and performers alike ... overwhelmingly either ignore these arguments or dismiss them as selfevidently nonsensical.' A. Parrott,

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'Bach's chorus: a "briefyet highly necessary"reappraisal',Early music, xxiv (1996), p.551.

6 See, for example, G. Stauffer,Bachthe Mass in B minor (New York, 1997), esp. pp.2o7-16.

7 For more on this issue and a survey of the influence of Rifkin's theories on recent recorded performances of Bach, see J. Butt 'Bach recordings from 1980 to 1995: a mirror of historical performance', forthcoming in Bach perspectives, iv, ed. D. Schulenberg (1998). 8 For more details, see J. Rifkin, 'Bach's chorus: a preliminary report', Musical times, cxxiii (1982), pp.747-54, esp. pp.748-9. 9 Even here, Rifkin argues convincingly that the pattern of survival makes this seem unlikely: J. Rifkin, 'Bassoons,

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'Parrott,'Bach'schorus:a "briefyet p.574. highlynecessary"reappraisal', 11 SeeA. Dfirr,criticalcommentary of the St to the Neue Bach-Ausgabe MatthewPassion,ii/5,P-49.

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15 SeeTon Koopman'sarticleelsewherein this issue. 16 SeeL.Dreyfus,Bachandthepatternsof invention(Cambridge,MA, 1996), p.242.

trueof Eric 17 Thisis particularly Chafe'sTonalallegoryin thevocal musicoff. S. Bach(BerkeleyandLos Angeles, 1991), the most extensive and far-reaching hermeneutic study of Bach in recent years.

* i

kritische 18 D. MartinLuthersWerke:

MASTERCLASSES

Gesamtausgabe(Weimar, 1883-1983), ii, p.136;ix, p.651.

CHAMBER MUSIC

19 Chafe, Tonal allegory,pp.275-423;

Jill Feldman

for the connectionsbetweenthe St MatthewPassionandLuther'smeditation on Christ'sPassion,see esp.

voice

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pp.337-47.

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20 'Dem Christus leyden muf nit mit worten und scheyn, sondern mit dem

Richard Gwilt

lebenund warhafftiggehandeltwer-

baroque violinand viola

den': M. Luther, 'A meditation on Christ's Passion' (1519), D. Martin LuthersWerke,ii, pp.141-2.

Rainer Zipperling baroque cello and viola da gamba

21 There is a bass arioso at an earlier point in the St John Passion (in all but the 1725version), 'Betrachte, meine Seel", which comes near the beginning of part 2. However, contrary to the pattern Bach later established in the St Matthew Passion, the ensuing aria is sung not bfthe bass but by the tenor.

22 See E. Axmacher, 'AusLiebe will mein Hey/and sterben'--Untersuchungen zum Wandel des Passionsverstiindnisses im friihen Jahrhundert 18. (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1984), esp. pp.2o4-18. EARLY

Ketil Haugsand harpsichord

Ana Mafalda Castro chamber music singing class accompaniment

Information

Academia de MtisicaAntiga de Lisboa R. RicardoEspiritoSanto, 3 - 1. Esq.a 1200 Lisboa- Portugal Tel./Fax: 351/1/390 77 24 E-mail:[email protected] MUSIC

FEBRUARY

1998

107