Leipzig 1723
The premise of this album from the Capricornus Consort in Basel is a simple one: let’s perform music by all the top contenders for the St. Thomas’ cantor position in Leipzig after their previous music director passed away, one Johann Kuhnau.
The story is of course an interesting one because the job interview took so long. Well, not just because of that; that was a secondary consequence of choosing the right person for the job then having them back out. The liner notes do an excellent job of setting up this drama, with all the details of Telemann’s, Graupner’s, Fasch’s, and Bach’s requirements to be considered for one of Germany’s more prestigious religious music jobs. Even Handel gets a mention, but of course he’d left Germany for London.
I’d always thought it was ludicrous that Leipzig’s town council had made the shortsighted decision to choose other composers over Bach and then, when he’d finally been offered the job, to consider him a “mediocre” job candidate. We don’t know what kind of vibe Bach gave off, and clearly the interview wasn’t about who was the better musician. But the liner notes for this release do indicate for the first time for me, at least, the lens by which they may have been using to choose the best candidate. Despite Bach’s lack of experience as an opera composer, that was the detail they seemed to hold in high regard for their new cantor. And then once he was hired, he was warned not to write anything too worldly or operatic!
The position didn’t sound great, for what they paid or what the responsibilities entailed. And yet he accepted the position and made his mark in that city.
Of course Bach and his musical brothers were not being considered for their ability to write concertos and sonatas but chamber music for strings and recorder is the common element explored in this recording featuring the South African recorder virtuoso Stefan Temmingh. Let not that fact that this recording is not church cantatas distract us from the otherwise beautiful, clean, and exciting performances that help us today, at least, compare some of the compositional mettle that these men had to offer, albeit in different form, to the Leipzig Town Council.
The works performed include:
- C. Graupner: Concerto in F, GWV 323
- J.F. Fasch: Sonata FaWV N:d3
- J.S. Bach: Concerto in F, BWV 1057
- G.P. Telemann: Quartet in G minor, TWV 43:g4
- J.F. Fasch: Concerto in F, FaWV L:F6
- G.P. Telemann: TWV 51:C1
The opening work, performed with one-per-part orchestration, shines in a sunny and reverberant acoustic. The engineering makes us feel as if we’re standing among the the musicians, and all instruments, including the harpsichord, sound equally present.
The middle movement of the Graupner changes moods quickly and it’s as if we’ve changed to a nighttime scene, or perhaps early morning? The bass energy from what I imagine is a bass instrument (the violone listed?) sounds beautiful. Temmingh’s solo is broken across different declamations and I thought the movement was very well done.
The Fasch sonata for strings is wrought in a four-movement plan; it opens in the spirit of a trio sonata by Corelli but by the end of the first phrase Fasch transforms the melodic elements out of the past and the old mold is broken. The phrasing might equally work across the melodic lines as a vocal duet. The extra part available to him with a viola is an interesting touch; this piece functions as a prototypical string quartet. There’s an Italian element to the second movement, with the instruments’ traversal through a harmonic progression; the perpetual energy is underpinned with counterpoint as well. The piece showcases Fasch’s fine abilities as a composer who honestly seems more forward thinking than J.S. Bach. The musical material may not be as profound as those in Bach’s most famous pieces, but I did enjoy this piece.
We’re in more familiar territory with BWV 1057, Bach’s re-working of his fourth Brandenburg Concerto for two recorders and harpsichord. The meaning behind this piece has always interested me; the original is scored for flauti d’echo while this version makes more practical asks: two recorders with harpsichord. Philipp Pickett once conjectured that the piece was portraying a contest of Apollo to impress his virtuosic capacity with the two virtuosic episodes for the violin. It’s not hard to imagine Bach wanting to take over the lead role in a performance for the Zimmermann Coffeehouse concerts he’d given with the Leipzig Collegium Musicum. Rightly so, the engineers here have put the bring harpsichord front and center and while the recorders take a back seat, they still come through at what I gauge is a good volume in comparison to the remainder of the ensemble. There are a few spots where I am guessing Temmingh can’t hold back with stylistic and ornamental graces that put a smile, at least, on my face. Sebastian Wienand manages a very convincing role on the harpsichord; the middle movement’s tempo might have been pushed, but he manages to keep the solo line going despite the tempo with ample ornamental support.
The Telemann quartet is a favorite piece of mine. Immediately as it starts one is taken by the breakneck speed adopted by the ensemble. I’ve held that the recording by Musica Antiqua Köln featuring Maurice Steger set a very high bar; their recording engineering, I think, is ultimately superior; far less ambiance is captured in that recording. However there’s also a balance issue at play, I’d wager, with the recorder in the MAK recording sounding a bit too forward for the typical volume of a recorder; the balance with this newer recording is more natural. They too make magic out of the middle movement in different ways; this Adagio is one of the truly special things Telemann wrought. This piece was a good choice to showcase Telemann’s gifts.
The Fasch concerto is clearly written to show off someone’s virtuosic skills; the opening music brings to mind the flavor of Telemann, who wrote a number of concertos and overture-suites for recorder. The main theme for the recorder is simple in the same way that Bach’s theme in his E major violin concerto; Bach’s works up the triad; Fasch comes down the chord, highlighting the tonic chord. The middle movement could very well stand in for a nod to the solo concertos of Vivaldi with reduced scoring and the wandering line left for the soloist. The writing is perhaps less regular, in terms of phrasing, which speaks both to Fasch’s style and the evolution of instrumental music in imitation of an organic human expression.
In an interesting balance of motivic ideas, the third movement goes upward, where the solo in the first went downward. It’s a beautiful symmetry of ideas that only one of Germany’s finest might have taken the care to fashion.
The final work is (to me ) a familiar concerto by Telemann; the opening movement oftentimes is too slowly played; I like the solution here which seems in line with the tempo indication of Allegretto. This is the only piece on the record that I felt was lacking; the reason for this was the contributions from the rest of the ensemble sound anemic compared to other recordings using larger ensembles. Temmingh’s contributions however are among the strongest on record; he’s a confident player and technically brilliant. He manages to delight us without taking us into extremes of speed and pyrotechnical flash.
At the end of the recording the most moving aspect of this project was not the music. Which is a horrible thing for me to admit; for I thoroughly enjoyed every track. But it’s the fragility of our path in life and how all the extra things going on around us can distract our contemporaries from understanding the value of what is truly important; or in the case of the 1723 Leipzig interviews, our abilities. I mean, if we had a president of the United States, for instance, who was really good and well-liked and had the capacity to help lead us, say, out of a global warming nightmare, but we just discard him or her at the end of his tenure and start the election process up again. “But there are rules!” Of course, I know, there are rules, politics, (with 2020 backward vision) and misguided priorities… maybe Bach’s audition just stunk. Maybe the musicians were ill-prepared. But those politicians had one of the world’s most profound musical minds working for them and they couldn’t even see it.
The concept is an interesting one for an album and yes, given the pieces offered here, they are all outstanding. I’m forever in disbelief about that audition and Bach’s ongoing relationship with his bosses. Given this menu of options, however, making the right choice might have been harder than I’ve first imagined. And we can thank this album for bringing that realization to light.
