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Sydney Grew
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« Reply #109 on: 10:42:09, 16-01-2008 » |
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Perhaps it is our native dimness but we feel that Johann Sebastian Bach's specifications of his requirements in his own words have been insufficiently or indeed not at all heeded by Members here discussing.
When in 1730 the Leipsic town council condemned the shortcomings of the choirs and declared that the bad state of affairs was entirely Bach's fault, Bach sent them a statement of what should be available for use in the church music and what was in actuality. The following presents the substance of his remarks:
A cantata choir should have four soloists and eight choralists. This gives the chorus two singers for each part. There are, however, exceptional conditions where the soloists ought to number five, six, seven and even eight. These conditions obtain when the soloists sing per choros. (Bach's Latin expression is ambiguous, and English writers on Bach seem to have given it up as untranslatable: it may mean 'through the chorus,' as when the soloists and the chorus sing together, but in two individual bodies, each with its own contrapuntal parts. A grand combination like this would be, in effect, a double choir; and it can be understood that in such conditions the soloists should equal the choristers in number.) Thus the number of singers in a cantata choir ought to be sixteen.
Actually, however, sixteen is not enough. Choristers are often unable to perform, because of illness--especially at this time of the year, says Bach, the time being the hot, dry summer. Therefore, to be on the safe side, there should be three singers for each choral part, making a chorus of twelve.
This consideration applies also to a motet choir (for example the second choir of the Thomas School boys, which on ordinary Sundays has to sing only a cappella part-music). With a choir of twelve, there is a fair certainty that the motet will be sung with at least two voices to a part.
Motets are sung in the churches of St. Thomas, St. Nicholas and the 'New.' Consequently for these three churches thirty-six choralists are wanted, and four (or more up to eight) soloists--that is, in all forty (or forty-four). Some boys are wanted, furthermore, for St. Peter's.
The total coetus, or assembly, of foundation scholars is fifty-five. If each member was a serviceable vocalist, conditions would be good. But in the nature of things this cannot be so. Some are beginners, others have their voices broken, others are musically incapable. As matters are at present in the school, seventeen scholars are serviceable, twenty are in process of training and are not yet serviceable, and seventeen are useless. Thus there are seventeen boys available for a minimum requirement of forty. But not even the seventeen are in reality available for vocal work. Some of them have to function as instrumentalists in the performance of cantatas.
A cantata requires in the lowest computation 2 first violins, 2 second violins, 2 first violas, 2 second violas, 2 cellos and a double bass: 11 string players in all. In the wind department it requires 2 oboes, 1 bassoon, 3 trumpets: 6 performers in all. A drummer being also needed, the grand total is 18. It is, however, better to have three players for each of the violin parts. Moreover, a third oboe and a second bassoon are sometimes wanted. Finally, flutes are frequently used. Thus the band should number twenty at the least, to balance the chorus of twelve (or sixteen), and it should number more if full satisfaction and complete equipment is desired.
The town council provides officially seven players only--2 violins, 2 trumpets, 2 oboes and 1 bassoon. Lacking are violas, cellos, double bass, drums, flutes, third trumpet and third oboe; and the violin parts are restricted to a single player for each. The seven instrumentalists are the employees of the town council. They form the town band. Several are old men, who should be retired. The others are not 'in good practice'; that is, they have not been able to keep up their technique.
Here Bach makes some general remarks: German performers of instrumental music are expected to play without preparation, and at first sight, any music, whether Italian, French, German or Polish. They are expected to play it as if they were the native virtuoso performers who have studied it well beforehand, and, indeed, know it almost by heart. These virtuosi, moreover, are paid high salaries, and their diligence and care are therefore well rewarded. Not being filled with concern for their livelihood, they can cultivate their art and become agreeable performers. It is so with the musicians employed at the royal court at Dresden. Our German players are left to take care of themselves; they have to work for their bread and have therefore little leisure to develop their technique, still less to become virtuosi. They are filled constantly with anxiety.
Bach returns to his particular theme. In Kuhnau's time a few university students who played instruments used to help in the cantata performances, taking second violin, viola, cello and double bass. They did this willingly, because it gave them pleasure and because certain little sums of money were paid them for their services. That payment has been discontinued. The students as a result have gradually withdrawn, for no one will work altogether for nothing. The instrumental places vacated by the students have to be filled with scholars from the school. The boys have to be taught their instruments. But since these boys, naturally among the more gifted musically, are turned into instrumentalists, they are lost to the chorus, thus with serious addition to the vocal problem.
In the case of the festivals the position is worse. Cantatas have then to be performed at St. Thomas's and St. Nicholas's at the same time. The boys who are instrumentalists on ordinary Sundays have to become singers again; and the instrumental performers are in consequence still more deficient. Kuhnau and his predecessor enjoyed an advantage in their cantorship that no longer exists. In their time there was a certain member of the council who out of his own pocket found fees for university students who could come in at festival times and sing alto, tenor and bass. This gentleman also paid for additional instrumentalists, in particular for second violins.
Coincident with all this is a radical change in the public taste for music in churches. The kind of music wanted now is that for which competent performers are absolutely essential. They must be instructed in the new and special technique it requires, and only such persons should be selected and appointed as can benefit by the instruction and so please the congregation; to say nothing of pleasing the composer by a good rendering of his work.
Thus Bach, in one of the most informative and authoritative documents that survive from his time. It will be noted that only once, and that in the last abstracted phrase, does Bach let it be seen that he is himself directly affected by conditions. He is, without doubt, making a case. He presents every possible point. The picture is the blackest that could be drawn. But when all that is allowed for, one is still left wondering how cantatas could possibly be performed, and what kind of performance they could possibly have had.
The council received Bach's statement, filed it (because it was sent to them officially) and ignored it.
Fifteen years later--when Bach had been in office twenty-two years, had composed for the churches about 270 cantatas and had directed cantata performances to a number somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500--his first or 'cantata' choir was constructed as follows: 5 sopranos, 2 altos, 3 tenors and 7 basses. Bach's ideal was three voices to a part. Here his basses outnumber his altos by more than three to one, and his sopranos are nearly twice as strong as his tenors. The bad balance can be due to one condition only, namely, that he had these "serviceable" singers in the school and no others, and had to put them into the choir. Thus it is clear that to the end his available forces were always wrong, and that he never heard his music in the "good rendering that is pleasing to the composer."
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