BACH
Cantata No.195 Dem Gerechten muss das Licht
Cantata No.196 Der Herr denket an uns
Cantata No.197 Gott ist unsre Zuversicht
Shihomi Inoue-Heller, Doris
Soffel, Costanza Cuccaro (sopranos)
Elisabeth Graf, Mechthild Georg (altos)
Oly Pfaff, Aldo Baldin (tenors)
Andreas Schmidt, Niklaus Tüller, Philippe Huttenlocher (basses)
Gächinger Kantorei, Bach-Collegium Stuttgart
Württembergisches Kammerorchester/Helmuth Rilling
Recorded 1983/76/84 respectively
HÄNSSLER EDITION VOL.
59 CD 92059 [58.31] Edition
Bachakademie
Crotchet
The three cantatas featured here were written in 1737, ?1708 and c.1742 and
all for weddings but to sacred texts. Bach's contract in Leipzig made provision
for extra fees payable over and above his fixed salary for what were termed
Accidentien, what we would nowadays term "incidentals", effectively
weddings and funerals, and on occasion these could average 15% extra per
year. As he bitterly complained to a friend, 'If there were somewhat more
dead bodies than usual the accidentia would rise in proportion. But
on the other hand if there was a healthy Lufft [climate] the numbers would
drop'. Couples would even try and get permission from the Elector to wed
outside the town's boundaries thus incurring cheaper charges for the music
performed at the ceremony. This exercised Bach to write many a stiff letter
of complaint to his employer. His wedding pieces, known as occasional works
in music, often used previously existing material with the amount of work
he put into the composition, depending upon how well (if at all) he knew
the couple, or upon the size of the fee he was getting. Their length also
varied - on this disc none of the three is a long work but BWV 196 is half
the length (12.39) of BWV 197 (26.32).
There is much charming music in all three cantatas, BWV 196 consistently
so in its string accompaniments throughout. There is also much word-painting
in the way Bach uses the instruments themselves (such as pairs of flutes
to represent the wedded couple, pastoral dances anticipating the post-nuptial
wedding feast) and, in BWV 197 a halfway division in the work after which
the remaining numbers are grouped as 'post copulationen', fairly suggestively
too in the music. As to the performances on this disc in the Rilling series
of all Bach's cantatas, BWV 195 is decidedly weaker in vocal (not choral
or instrumental) standard than the other two, the main culprits being the
soprano and alto soloists. Otherwise Rilling's trumpeters and wind players,
as well as his chorus, are singled out for special praise.
Christopher Fifield
Performance
Recording
