Bach, J S: Cantata BWV169 'Gott soll allein mein Herze haben'

Andreas Scholl follows up his much-praised Purcell collection, ‘O Solitude’ (4782262), with a project perfectly matched to his artistry and musical heritage. Andreas Scholl first sang the music of J. S. Bach as a boy chorister. Now the leading countertenor of our time returns to his musical roots with his own selection of arias from Bach’s cantatas - including one of the best-loved of all Bach’s vocal works, “Ich habe genug”.

Recording locations: Recorded live: Lund, Leipzig, Thomaskirche, Leipzig October 2000.

Gardiner’s award-winning Bach Cantata series on Soli Deo Gloria continues with volume 9 in the series featuring Cantatas for the seventeenth and eighteenth Sunday after Trinity. Recorded live in October 2000. We join John Eliot Gardiner, The Monteverdi Choir and The English Baroque Soloists on their Bach Cantata pilgrimage in the spectacular dark brown gothic Allhelgonakyrkan (All Saints Church) in Lund.

The concert explodes into action as the long fanfare-like ritornello for solo trumpet and strings herald the opening of BWV 148 Bringet dem Herrn Ehre seines Namens (Give the Lord the Glory due his Name). This grand opening leads the way for the chorus to enter with a rousing delivery of the psalm verse, ‘Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.’ This is then followed by the chorale cantata BWV 114 Ach, lieben Christen, seid getrost (Ah, dear Christians, be brave), from Bach’s second Leipzig cycle. We then hear BWV 47 Wer sich selbst erhöhet, der soll erniedriget werden (Whoever himself exalteth shall be abashed) which opens with a mighty opening movement for chorus. The programme ends with the most instrumentally conceived of Bach’s double-choir motets, BWV 226 Der Geist hilft unser Schwacheit auf, (The Spirit Helpeth Our Infirmities). It is also the only motet composed by Bach for which a specific purpose is known – the funeral service of JH Ernesti, the rector of the Thomasschule in Leipzig.

We then travel to the Thomaskirche in Leipzig and open the programme with BWV 96 Herr Christ, der ein’ge Gottessohn (Lord Christ, the only Son of God). Next comes BWV 169 Gott soll allein mein Herze haben (God alone shall have my heart), the last and considered by many to be the most consistently beautiful of Bach’s Cantatas for solo alto. This is then followed by the superb choral cantata BWV 116 Du Friedefürst, Herr Jesu Christ, first performed on 26 November 1724. The choir then retreat to the very crucible where for the last twenty-seven years of his life Bach worked. They form a horseshow around his final resting place and sing a cappella what legend has identified as Bach’s very last piece, BWV 668 Vor deinen Thron tret’ ich hiermit, the so-called Deathbed Chorale.

In 1726 Bach entered a new period of creative innovation in Leipzig: renouncing the chorus, he built up a constant dialogue between solo arias and finely sculpted instrumental parts.The three cantatas presented here represent the culmination of this development, and have established their place as a peak of the recorded repertoire.

"If the public only knew it, singers of classical music can be diamonds every bit as rough as their rock counterparts. But the mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink is a notable exception: graceful, poised and intelligent, she is every inch the lady, and it's no surprise to learn that she's wife to the Austrian ambassador to Slovenia, the country of her ancestors.This personal elegance colours her approach to performance. She doesn't deliver Bartoli-style show-stopping exhibitionism (she raises her eyebrows slightly when I mention the name), because she is a musician of an older and more dignified school, valuing refinement, subtlety and sensibility over fireworks, and she never sings louder than lovely. Yet there's nothing genteel or pallid about her golden-toned voice.The emotions she evokes in baroque music and Mozart, as well as the more romantic terrain of lieder, Berlioz and Mahler, are marvellously vivid. In the 1980s she moved to Europe, but nothing much happened until she met the conductor René Jacobs, a counter-tenor of note "who understood the way my voice worked" and led her towards the baroque repertory where she has happily dwelt ever since. Bach is her desert island composer, she says, with Monteverdi second. She has sung with Jacobs for almost 20 years, but is equally sought after by great names such as John Eliot Gardiner and Nikolaus Harnoncourt, alternating concerts with lieder recitals, the latter often with the English pianist Roger Vignoles. Opera plays a diminishing part in her schedule.As an ambassador's wife and mother to two, she dislikes being away for long periods and limits herself to "perhaps one set of performances a year": in 2008, it will be Idomeneo, in Barcelona." [with René Jacobs, recorded for harmonia mundi, June release 2009] The Daily Telegraph

J.S. Bach wrote several cantatas that feature a particular solo voice. The selection on this CD, which has been taken from the award-winning cycle by Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir are for alto and tenor. The alto solo cantata “Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust” BWV 170 was written for the 6th Sunday after Trinity and first performed on 28 July 1726. Bach took its text from a collection by Georg Christian Lehms, whose sacred poetry he had previously utilised in Weimar. The alto solo cantata “Gott soll allein mein Herze haben” BWV 169 was premiered on the 18th Sunday after Trinity, 20 October 1726. The anonymous text is based on the Gospel for that Sunday, Matthew 22: 34-46, (“love thy neighbour”). “Widerstehe doch der Sünde” BWV 54, written for the 3rd Sunday in Lent, was performed in Weimar on 4 March 1714, but probably originated in 1713 or earlier. The words are by the librettist of BWV 170. Georg Christian Lehms, The piece represents in all likelihood Bach’s first example of a solo cantata. The tenor solo cantata “Ich armer Mensch, ich Sündenknecht” BWV 55 for the 22nd Sunday after Trinity was first performed on 17 November 1726. The anonymous text refers to the Sunday’s Gospel, Matthew 18: 23-35 (parable of the unmerciful servant). The alto aria “Bekennen will ich seinen Namen” BWV 200 represents a fragment from a cantata whose other movements are completely unknown.