Bachtalk: Thinking Through Music

Brad Delong interviewed on Conversations with Tyler (podcast). "There is no better way for harnessing the eight-billion-brain anthology intelligence of humanity to achieving the social goals we all want, other than to organize a well-functioning market system. That is a basic and serious truth."

The Return of the Magicians (column), by Ross Douthat (NYT). On AI bots, UFO's, and spirituality through drugs.

Sails and Sail Plan, The Quarterdeck Sailing Podcast

(Current book) Reading the Glass: A CAPTAIN'S VIEW OF WEATHER, WATER, AND LIFE ON SHIPS, By Elliot Rappaport. A fantastically well-written book about weather and its influence on the sailor.

St. Matthew Passion (Bach), RIAS Chamber Choir, Rene Jacobs. Very slow opening chorus, but passionate and sonorous.

The following was a reflection from the Bach Vespers service at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Terrace Park, Ohio, on February 5, 2023.

Experienced blue-water sailors will tell you that the first few days away from land are the most difficult. Time on land can take away the sea legs of even the most veteran sailor. Adjusting to life on a constantly shifting surface, in a home that is small and cramped, with the truly unpleasant possibility of seasickness can drive just about anyone back to shore. “A ship in a harbor is safe,” you may have heard, “but that is not what ships were built for.”

Usually, though, after a few days, a sailor adjusts to life on the ocean. The daily routine is settled and is centered around the boat, the weather, and the crew. Nothing else matters. The winds may increase, and adjustments are made. The routing may have to change, and it does so with careful consideration of those three essentials: boat, weather, and crew. The sailor might encounter surprises: good ones, like a pod of dolphins dancing in front of the bow, or a bird who uses the boat as a resting place before setting off into the sky. There might be bad ones, as well: a surprise squall, a rare rogue wave, or a late-night encounter with a giant tanker. For all of these, the good sailor is equipped and responds. And despite these risks, many open-water sailors will swear that the middle of nowhere, at sea, is still the best place to be.

It is highly unlikely that Bach ever sailed. The only time that he might have even seen the ocean was during his three months in Lübeck, where he famously walked to hear the Baroque master Dietrich Buxtehude play. So, it is logical to assume that any allusions Bach makes to the sea are not based on real-world experience. The sea, to Bach, was more like a fable, as the South Pole might be to you and me today. We can imagine it, based on readings and photographs, but we likely haven’t felt the cold blowing off South Georgia Island. When Bach paints a sea-picture in his music, he is painting the centuries of fables, myths, and history of the ocean handed down by previous generations.

But fables and myths can have their truth. The origin of Bach’s cantata Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn (BWV 92) is notable for a few reasons. It was written in January 1725, in the middle of his chorale cantata cycle. For a full church year, he based every cantata on a German hymn, most likely in celebration of the bicentennial of the first Lutheran hymnal published in 1524. Cantata 92 was also unusual because he based it off the same chorale he had used the previous week. Either he especially liked this tune, or he felt he had unfinished business with it.

But most interesting is his complete ignoring of the lectionary readings for the week. There is no reference in the cantata to either the epistle or the gospel for that feast day. Instead, Bach based the cantata on a single line of text from the chorale, and three lines of response from an unknown poet:

Even if he tosses me into the sea,
The Lord still lives upon the high seas,
he has shared my life with me,
therefore I will not be drowned in them.

From this, a cantata was born.

If you listen to this cantata, you may detect the feel of the ocean in this music. There is a sea journey hidden here. The opening chorus depicts the setting out to sea, with a gentle bobbing of a boat under unsettled clouds. The tenor and bass arias are the storms at sea, relentless and overpowering, with the word-painting of lightning and rain in the instruments. Twice Bach inserts an unusual form: a recitative and chorale

in the same movement. The shifting back and forth between these two can sound abrupt and unsteady, like an unstable boat through rough seas. The final soprano aria is an anomaly. Like nothing else in the cantata, it is a patch of peace in the midst of fright. I imagine that the sailor has been cast from the boat during a storm and has ended up alive, and on a peaceful bit of grass near the shore, waking to find sheep gently grazing, with a shepherd keeping watch nearby. It is a surreal vision inside a vivid story.

You may listen and see something else. In any case, this remains a remarkable example of Bach’s storytelling and picture painting through music. Like life on the sea, and like a shadow of our lives, it is uneasy, unpredictable, and beautiful.

The origin of this text feels cinematic: Phillip Brooks, the rector of Holy Trinity Church in Philadelphia, was visiting the Holy Land in 1865. He rode on horseback from Jerusalem, and on Christmas Eve found himself in a field outside Bethlehem, supposedly the same field where the shepherds had tended flock. He observed the city and heard singing from the Church of the Nativity and was moved to compose this carol. This story is so vivid that I can't help but picture it every time I sing it now. He later asked the organist at Holy Trinity to compose a tune for the carol, which became the familiar one we all know.

Ralph Vaughan Williams composed the tune FOREST GREEN, which stems from a pre-existing English Ballad. This tune is actually the more familiar one for O Little Town of Bethlehem in England; the original tune remains the standard in the United States. The quaint folksiness of the tune is evident in the lengthening of the pick-up into the final line: "...the everlasting Light, THE hopes and fears of....".

A recurring theme in studying these carols is the coming together of artists, across time and geography. Thanks to Phillip and Ralph for this one.

Here's some congregational singing that rivals St. Thomas:

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There may not be another carol in our 2022 Lessons and Carols service that spans such an immense time between text and music. Stephen Caracciolo is an Ohioan, conductor of the Lancaster Chorale, a professional choir in central Ohio. You can read all about him on his website.

This piece was my introduction to his compositions; I have always treasured it. It has everything I love in a carol: beauty, simplicity, and a sense of mystery.

Go back 600 years from today, and you'd be getting close to the origins of this text. It is macaronic, which means it uses more than one language. The ending line is my favorite:

Leive we al this wordly merthe,

And folwe we this joyful berthe:

Transeamus (Let us go).

I should know more about Christina Rossetti, for I know very little, and her poetry has moved me many times. I quick review of her Wikipedia page makes me even more curious. She never intended this poem to be set to music, and yet it has received two of the most beautiful ones by Holst and Darke.

My first—and favorite—poem of hers is Echo:

Come to me in the silence of the night;

    Come in the speaking silence of a dream;

Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright

    As sunlight on a stream;

      Come back in tears,

O memory, hope, love of finished years.

O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,

    Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,

Where souls brimful of love abide and meet;

    Where thirsting longing eyes

      Watch the slow door

That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live

    My very life again though cold in death:

Come back to me in dreams, that I may give

    Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:

      Speak low, lean low,

As long ago, my love, how long ago!

Harold Darke was an organist in London. His tenure at the Church of St. Michael, Cornhill was from 1916 to...1966. That's longevity.

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