Everything you have to know about the next concert's program!

Johann Sebastian Bach: Jesu, meine Freude (Jesus, my Joy), motet, BWV 227

The song beginning with the words “Jesu, meine Freude” is one of the most frequently adapted chorales featuring in Bach’s lifework. Bach liked to use the melody of this song or the text of some of its verses, and he also enjoyed working with free paraphrases of the poem. In the motet entitled “Jesu, meine Freude”, Bach composed music for all six verses of the hymn, and this way demonstrated almost an entire range of techniques for adapting chorales. This work by Bach features not only “simple” harmonization and musical adaptations that dQepict and reflect every nuance of the text, but also freely composed sections that subtly evoke the original melody.

The hymn, featuring Johann Crüger’s (1653) melody and Johann Franck’s lyrics, was typically performed at funeral ceremonies or commemorative events, and Bach most probably composed this adaptation of his for such occasions. However, today it is considered unlikely that the motet was written for the funeral (held on 18^th July 1723) of Johanna Maria Kees, the widow of the postmaster of Leipzig.

Bach inserted excerpts from Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans between the verses of the hymn, and thus created a large-scale composition consisting of 11 movements. The sixth movement, a large-scale fugue, was placed in the geometric centre of the work and is based on the following words of St. Paul: “But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” (Romans 8:9)

Georg Philipp Telemann: Der Donnerode (The Ode of Thunder), TWV 6:3

People “felt the earth tremble under their feet. The sea swelled and foamed in the harbour, and beat to pieces the vessels riding at anchor. Whirlwinds of fire and ashes covered the streets and public places; houses fell, roofs were flung upon the pavements, and the pavements were scattered. Thirty thousand inhabitants of all ages and sexes were crushed under the ruins,” Voltaire writes in his famous novel entitled “Candide”. It is estimated that the earthquake that struck on 1^st November 1755 claimed a total of 100,000 victims, most of whom died in the Portuguese capital, which was completely devastated in the tragedy. In fact, in Lisbon, a terrible fire raged for six days after the disaster, and it completely destroyed nine-tenths of the Portuguese metropolis. The royal palace, the new opera house, numerous churches and libraries, and most of the cultural treasures of “old” Portugal were razed to the ground. Chaos immediately set in over the remains of the smouldering ruins, and looters and criminals, who had escaped during the earthquake, took control of the area where formerly there were streets. King Joseph I and his minister, Sebastiao José de Carvalho e Melo, were only able to break these criminals’ power by deploying the army and imposing draconian measures. This tragic event moved and touched the whole of Europe. Many tried to describe the event as a “simple” natural phenomenon, others saw it as divine punishment, while still others interpreted it as a sign of lack of divine providence.

The full title of Georg Philipp Telemann’s grand oratorio is “Der Tag des Gerichts oder Der Donner-Ode (i.e. The Day of Judgement, or The Ode of Thunder)”. The first half of the two-part work (TWV 6:3a) was written in 1756, in the year of the earthquake; while the second part (TWV 6:3b) was completed a few years later.

The musical work looks at the events that preoccupied everyone at the time from the perspective of a religious person (or rather, let us put it this way, from the perspective of a person of unshakeable faith): the piece draws the audience’s attention primarily to divine will, the inevitability of the Last Judgment, and the gigantic powers that lie dormant in nature. Telemann worked on the basis of free poems composed along the ideas of Psalms 8 and 29, with verses written by Christian Gottfried Krause (1719–1770) and Karl Wilhelm Ramler (1725–1798). The solemn opening chorus (“How great is your name?”) echoes the central message of the entire musical piece, which warns that the praise of God should take precedence over and should come before the admiration of the splendour of mighty nature, or, as it is expressed in the duet at the end of the first part of the composition: “He thunders that he may be glorified” (“Er donnert, daß er verherrlichet werde”).

***