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Reviewer: Jerry
Dubins This is Volume 7 in Masaaki Suzuki’s survey of Bach’s secular cantatas, and with it comes one of the composer’s more familiar and popular entries in that category, the so-called “Peasant Cantata,” No. 212, subtitled “Cantate burlesque.” The work was composed to honor the nobleman Carl Heinrich von Dieskau (1706–1782), who had recently inherited and was now the new lord of the Klein-Zschocher estate, south-west of Leipzig. The cantata was performed on August 30, 1742, to mark the occasion. The libretto, written in an upper Saxon dialect by Bach’s regular librettist, who went by the pen name of Picander, could serve as the basis for an opera buffa, if Bach had composed one. The suitably simple and silly text involves a peasant girl and a farmhand, presumably keepers of the estate, who are included in the festivities despite their low station; and as the free beer loosens their tongues and inhibitions, they begin to flirt with each other. Lubricated by drink, the couple’s exchanges quickly devolve into lewd and slyly insulting remarks about and overheard by the assembled guests. There’s nothing like a little alcohol to get the hired help to blurt out what they really think of the lord of the manor, the village priest, and the other invited dignitaries. But since everyone else is a little tipsy as well, they take the pokes in fun; and besides, they won’t remember any of it, come tomorrow anyway. I’m not sure exactly why, among Bach’s secular cantatas, the “Peasant Cantata” has achieved such popularity. The ratio of recitative to aria is relatively high, and most of the arias, such as they are, last mere seconds, sounding more arioso-like than they do fully developed set numbers. The two lengthiest arias, “Klein-Zschocher müsse” for soprano, and “Dein Wachstum sei feste und lache vor Lust” for bass, are seven and five minutes each, respectively. But the work is really more in the nature of a dialogue cantata more than anything else, though the two vocal soloists don’t duet together in the same aria as they do in Bach’s true dialogue cantatas. Rather, their stand-alone arias are mainly rapid-fire monologues that follow one upon the other in quick succession, and they don’t really contain Bach’s most memorable music. In fact, much of the score borrows from local folk tunes and rustic dances for its material. I wish I could say I enjoyed the performance as much as I have Suzuki’s many other Bach cantata offerings, but the period instrument horn player is a bit much for me to take. He starts out fine, for example, with his rapidly tongued repeated notes at the beginning of the 44-second-long bass aria, “Es nehme zehntausend Dukaten,” but at 28 seconds in, when his part calls for playing more than the same note over and over again, the burbles and questionable pitch expose either the player or the instrument—or both—as not up to the task. In this cantata, as well as Bach’s other secular cantatas, I continue, as stated in my review of Volume 5 in this series, a preference for the modern instrument performances by Helmuth Rilling and his Stuttgart Bach Collegium. A good portion of Klaus Hofmann’s liner note is devoted to raising questions regarding the authenticity of Bach’s only two surviving Italian cantatas, Non sa che sia dolore and Amore traditore. They exist only in copies, the original autographs having never been found. That, plus inconsistencies in the style of writing, has led to continued skepticism among researchers as to the authorship of these two works. If Non sa che sia dolore (No. 209) is not by Bach, the actual composer had to have been an undisputed master at creating fake reproductions because the Sinfonia to the Cantata is indistinguishable from the concertante style so familiar to us from Bach’s many concertos. The format of the work is also similar to that of Bach’s cantatas for a single soloist, in this case a soprano, in the manner of Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, BWV 51. Following the Sinfonia in Non sa che sia dolore comes a coupled pair of recitatives and extended soprano arias, both of which are quite florid and vocally demanding, calling for a good deal of virtuosic technique, which, I might add, is delivered to quite stunning effect by Mojca Erdmann. Amore traditore (No. 203) is likewise a solo cantata for a single voice, this time a bass. It’s considerably shorter than its companion, however, consisting of two extended arias separated by a recitative sandwiched between them. If the authorship of either of these two cantatas is suspect, to my ear it’s this one. It just doesn’t sound like Bach, and moreover, it’s fairly uncharacteristic of Bach’s cantata MO in that the solo singer is accompanied throughout only by a solo harpsichord playing a part as virtuosic as that given to the vocalist. The singer barely has time to catch his breath as he blusters in lengthy melismatic passagework over being dumped by his girlfriend. The only way he can get over it is to renounce love forever. Unfortunately for Dominik Wörner, and for us, his renunciation is too long in coming. He simply hasn’t the vocal control of Mojca Erdmann in the soprano cantata, nor is Wörner’s North Star for pitch navigation as constant as is hers. Suzuki’s complete cycle of Bach’s sacred cantatas has been a singular achievement and one that has been lauded repeatedly in these pages. My feeling, though, is that his survey of the composer’s secular cantatas has been somewhat uneven and not always up to the same standard of excellence as his earlier work. To some extent, perhaps, the music itself is to blame, since it could be said, in all honesty, that Bach’s secular cantatas are uneven in quality and not always up the standards of his other works. In any case, if these particular cantatas interest you, there are other versions to choose from, especially when it comes to the “Peasant Cantata,” and in performances on both period and modern instruments. My preference, as noted earlier, is for Helmuth Rilling on Hänssler. | |
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