Masaaki Suzuki photo by Marco Borggreve

Masaaki Suzuki to be awarded the Leipzig Bach Medal 2012

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The distinguished Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt is to be given one of the world’s most prestigious awards – The Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society.

On Sunday 22 April 2012 at 3.00pm in London’s Barbican Centre, Harnoncourt will join a roll of honour without parallel in the history of world music. Inaugurated to mark Beethoven’s centenary, previous recipients include composers Brahms, Delius and Elgar, Stravinsky and Benjamin Britten,   singers Kathleen Ferrier, Dame Janet Baker and Thomas Quasthoff, and conductors Sir Charles Mackerras and Sir Simon Rattle. 

Recognised for his outstanding musical achievements on the world’s stage, Nikolaus Harnoncourt is also one of the earliest pioneers of Bach played on period instruments and according to period style. With his Concentus Musicus Vienna, he shared with the harpsichordist and director Gustav Leonhardt/Musica Antiqua Amsterdam what is probably the most important and influential complete cycle of Bach’s church cantatas on disc – the series they recorded for Teldec from 1970-the early 1990s.  Why was this series important? Because it enabled a wider audience to experience the new sound world of period style playing on original instruments, all-male solo and choral forces, and to hear the composer’s church cantatas (the cornerstone of his output) complete using musical forces with which Bach himself would have been familiar. A kindred spirit, the London Bach Society sends warmest congratulations to Nikolaus Harnoncourt on this very auspicious occasion.

The Royal Philharmonic Society celebrates its bi-centenary in 2013.

A Festival Year

To celebrate the 800th anniversary of the founding of a choir, a school and a church by city charter in 1212, the first phase of a year-long celebration took place in Leipzig from 19-25 March. This first phase celebrated the foundation and history of the Thomanerchor, now a world-renowned boys choir made famous by a certain Cantor who directed them and composed most of his church music for them – Johann Sebastian Bach, who served from 1723-1750, Soli Deo Gloria. The second celebratory events will be for the Thomasschule in September and the third for the Thomaskirche from 31 October (Reformationsfest) – 4 November (Mendelssohn Todestag). Interspersed is a range of events that includes the annual Leipzig Bachfest (7-17 June).  All this has been five years in the planning and preparation, with various books published, a stunning exhibition curated and  music, music, music that is central to this city’s being.  It is also a marvellous excuse for the Leipzigers to celebrate their greatest assets and ambassadors….and they did in large numbers last week.

The formal State and Civic celebration took place on Tuesday 20 March in the Thomaskirche in the presence of the new President of the Federal Republic of Germany Dr. Joachim Gauck, the Mayor of Leipzig Dr. Burkhard Jung and representatives from across the spectrum of German political and cultural life. I was delighted to be given an invitation and represented the London Bach Society, whose historic first appearance in Bach’s church took place in 1964, and repeated later in 1983 with Steinitz Bach Players as part of Martin Luther Year. LBS hosted the first ever visit to the UK by the Thomanerchor in 1994.

Bach’s music interspersed the various speeches made for this formally informal occasion, with these preceded by the majestic Prelude and Fugue in C major BWV 545 played by Thomasorganist Ulrich Böhme. Bedecked with a  special 800 Thomana scarf, we listened to the motet Singet dem Herrn, the chorale from Cantata BWV 140 and Dona Nobis Pacem from the Mass in B minor, complemented by erudite presentations from Professor Christoph Wolff (Bach-Archiv) and Pfarrer Christian Wolff (Thomaskirche) as well as the Leipzig Mayor and the Minister President of the Free State of Saxony. The church was packed and the atmosphere electric.  Following the formalities, hundreds of us walked in procession through the city streets to the site of the new campus Forum Thomanum about a mile away, in warm spring sunshine and where it was Open House.

The following day brought celebrations for hundreds of former Thomaner who gathered in the New Town Hall to be entertained by vocal ensemble amarcord, Die Prinzen, and of course the present Thomanerchor….but for me there was one very important task to perform on this, Bach’s 327th Birthday, and that was to light a candle in the Thomaskirche on behalf of the London Bach Society.

Later in the week, two Motettes (Services) enabled the Thomaner to invite other distinguished choirs to share their celebrations. This included the Choir of King’s College Cambridge whose solo Motette last Friday enabled the congregation to hear some gems from the treasury of English church music by William Byrd, Thomas Tallis and Henry Purcell, William Walton and Benjamin Britten. A first hearing of such pieces for the majority, the singing was of the highest order and the Motette very warmly received. It also heightened the anticipation for the four-choir Motette to follow on Saturdaywith Regensburg Domspatzen, Dresden Kreuzchor, Leipzig Thomanerchor and Choir of King’s College Cambridge coming together each to share some of their musical heritage. The repertory was drawn from across the spectrum of styles and periods, with the choirs each contributing a segment of specially selected works, from Victoria and Orlando di Lasso to former Thomaskantors Joh. Herrmann Schein and Joh. Sebastian Bach, from Duruflé and Petr Eben to Brahms and Frank Martin. King’s chose three contrasting works from the modern English church music repertory: Judith Weir’s Illuminare Jerusalem, Nicholas Maw’s One Foot in Eden and Giles Swayne’s setting of Magnificat. A packed Thomaskirche was held spellbound by the young people’s voices raised in song.  A wonderful and inspirational week.  Margaret Steinitz

At this time of year we are either busy rehearsing or buying tickets for one of the Bach Passions performances coming up. The choice nationwide is now considerable, the approaches to them and the interpretations very varied.  The presence of these inspirational works in our lives, created and provided by Bach for the Good Friday services in 1720s Leipzig, could almost be taken for granted. Passion performances are an essential part of our concert-going life….not so 60 years ago.

The death of King George VI on 6 February 1952 was a hammerblow to a country still recovering from wartime deprivations, clearing up the mess of war, finding its feet again, getting back to normal.  In the musical world orchestras like the LSO renewed their activities, but the last years of the wartime King’s reign also inspired pioneering musicians to found new orchestras, new societies and new festivals with new ideas and new music. These have since become part and parcel of our lives - among them The RPO, (New) Philharmonia Orchestra and (South) London Bach Society in 1945 and 1946, the Aldeburgh and Edinburgh Festivals in 1948, with the Royal Festival Hall built in 1951 for the Festival of Britain as we woke up to a new decade of hope and renewal.

A première for the St. Matthew

With the accession of the young Queen Elizabeth just a few weeks before, one of the first landmark performances of the new Elizabethan age just beginning took place 60 years ago on Saturday 22 March 1952 in the historic setting of London’s oldest church, the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, West Smithfield (AD 1123).  The performance was a concious attempt to take a fresh look at an existing masterpiece that has come to be regarded since as a key moment in the growing movement to promote ‘historically informed’ performances of Bach’s treasury of compositions ….in other words the movement to get back to Bach in its original form.

When Paul Steinitz prepared and directed the London Bach Society’s presentation of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in 1952, it was the first performance in Britain of the work in its complete and original German form. The language was still an enemy tongue, yet the audience was invited to participate in three chorales. Up to that time the German language had been jettisoned in favour of the more acceptable, but unreliable, English translations. Also a case could have been made that it was too soon to bring a German work sung in German to a British audience just seven years after the war’s end….but no one did.   However it wasn’t just the language that was the most important consideration, controversial enough though that would have been at the time, nor was the society’s choir and the soloists the first to have ever sung the work in its original language here and we did not claim that. The most influential ingredient in this ground breaking performance was the concept of it- no cuts, movements in the correct order, smaller forces, period style playing and singing, appropriate ornamentation, a correct text, with notational inconsistencies prevailing corrected using the score available at the time. No portative chamber organs existed – harpsichord was the main continuo instrument; there were no baroque instruments except the late, great Ambrose Gauntlett played the solo in the famous bass aria in Part II on the viola da gamba. There was no lowering of the pitch.. however it was performed in a church, complete and in its original German form.  The performance became a cherished annual event, drawing a Who’s Who of artistry to the platform and broadcast almost annually by BBC Third Programme, later Radio 3.  Above all it set musicians and audiences thinking…and changed the approach

How far we have come now….. © MS

1928-2012

The death of the distinguished harpsichordist and director Gustav Leonhardt in Holland on 16 January closes one of the most important chapters in the history of European Music over the last half century. He was perhaps the last living ‘true pioneer’ of historically informed performances of Bach, daring to challenge accepted thinking from the 1950s as Europe emerged from the austerity of the war years and into a new musical age that, along with others similarly curious, brought us  ‘Bach in its original form’.  With his wonderful keyboard dexterity and insight, it was a facet he brought to his performances that he never lost.

In 1996, Leonhardt accepted the first of two  invitations from me to come to our Bachfest. The first was to direct Steinitz Bach Players at the London Bach Society’s 50th anniversary concert – two seasonal Bach cantatas and a Lutheran Mass – to be given in the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, West Smithfield on Reformationsfest (31 October). We met to discuss the programme and its regime of rehearsals well in advance - BWV 180 and the Mass in A plus BWV 115,  a great Leipzig cantata  and one that Leonhardt had never directed before. While the interpretations were naturally different from those of my husband, his approach, how he thought through each recitative and aria and planned his rehearsals accordingly was exactly what I was used to. Placing the performers and music in such an historic setting prompted a phone call to his wife Marie, a distinguished violinist in her own right, to fly over.  She did. BBC Radio 3 thought the same – although Leonhardt was not too keen to have cables and microphones cluttering up the chancel and generally getting in the way.  He was finally pursuaded to allow a ‘discreet’ presence by Radio 3 when told that the concert was an important occasion for all concerned.  It worked out very well.  

Leonhardt’s second appearance with us saw him in his element. It was at Bachfest in 1999, a harpsichord recital that included some rarely heard early keyboard works by Bach (c.1700), given by candlelight in the chancel of St. Bartholomew-the-Great. This time he could not be pursuaded to allow a broadcast, but he did agree to be interviewed by my colleague Lindsay Kemp for Radio 3.   It was a stunning recital of some fairly recherché repertoire chosen to presage Bach’s 250th anniversary year, given by an artist who was not remotely concerned about anything except the music he was playing, its origins and his continuing curiosity about it. The audience, a distinguished one, was merely there.   Between the rehearsal and recital Leonhardt rested in the modestly furnished Vestry wearing his trademark mittens.  Just before he was due to come and play, I entered the  Vestry to give him his concert ‘call’ and found Leonhardt complete with mittens warming his hands around a candle he had lit, shunning the use of the modern electric fire standing by. That alone sums up a lot about him.

We send to Marie our fond remembrance and condolences, with thanks for the life and work of Gustav Leonhardt, true pioneer and kindred spirit.   Margaret Steinitz

For our 21st Bachfest last month we considered Bach’s life as a working composer, busily providing and preparing for his weekly commitments to the church and the town. The performances of the Goldbergs, Violin Sonatas, study of the Mass in B minor and the presentation of two cantatas both composed for a given Sunday for example, enabled us to reflect on Bach’s working life, its variety and environment.   

For our seasonal weblog to end the year we continue the theme and, like many Directors of Music today, we find Bach probably working ‘flat-out’  at whichever court or church he was employed, even though he was not required to provide quite so much music for church services in Advent. “Phew! that gives me a bit of time to prepare for the Christmas services” could have been his private mid-December thoughts, although outwardly as a good Lutheran, he would have been expected to join the congregation in the full spirit of the Advent season.

Offerings for the season

Inspite of less music being required for the weekly services, Bach provided no less than four cantatas for Advent -  BWV 36, 61, 62 for Advent Sunday and BWV 132 for the fourth Sunday in Advent.  He  gave full vent to his creative powers when providing what became over the years a substantial collection of cantatas for the busy Christmas and New Year church celebrations. Equal creative vigour is applied to the provision of the set of six cantatas each for a particular day over the festive season, his Christmas Oratorio BWV 248, composed for the appropriate seasonal services in 1734/1735.   Whichever, cantatas or oratorio,  here we find Bach at his most inventive and running the gamut of human emotions and sentiments through his music, from the majesty and splendour to be found in Cantata BWV 63 and Part 1 of the Christmas Oratorio for Christmas Day to his musical evocation of the Wise Men on camels journeying to present their gifts to the Christ-child in the manger, as depicted in the opening of BWV 65, and the joyous setting of the Passion chorale that ends Part six of the Christmas Oratorio, both these composed for Epiphany - his use of the Passion Chorale a portent of things to come perhaps?   

Full details of all the Cantatas composed for Christmas and New Year plus the Christmas Oratorio can be found by using our Database. Why not make your selection and immerse yourself in the music this Christmas season.

Details of Bach concerts near you can be found by using the following websites: www.concert-diary.com and www.bachtrack.com

A very Happy Christmas from us all in LBS

The fourth competitive Prize is scheduled to take place at Bachfest 2012. To keep up to date with the latest Prize news, email us your details to receive our regular updates lbs@lonbachsoc.demon.co.uk. The competition is open to undergraduate and postgraduate singers in the age range 21-32. For a taste of what is involved click on the Prize Entry Details for the 2010 competition.

SARAH POWER soprano (Ireland) who is pictured receiving her prize from Lord Avebury, Vice President of the London Bach Society

Sarah takes the £2,000 prize, which this year has been donated by members of the London Bach Society’s Members’ Circle. We are all truly grateful for their generosity and support.

The 4th Bach Singers Prize is scheduled to take place at Bachfest in 2012.