The Significance of Bach

My Own Position

We have explored ideas having to do with the quality and the meaning of Bach's life's work, the bases for possible interpretive approaches, and his self-concept. Having done this, I would like to describe the position to which I personally subscribe for the presentation of Bach's church music. It is this position that characterizes my recordings of the complete church cantatas and oratorios. Permit me to do so by returning once again to the three categories of possible Bach interpretation that I previously outlined.

I encountered very early the nineteenth-century performance tradition that has grown further during our century. The first St. Matthew Passion that I ever heard was performed by the Wurttemberg State Theatre under the direction of Ferdinand Leitner. I still remember being deeply moved at that time.

Naturally, then, when Bach's oratorios are programmed, conductors such as Von Karajan try to perform them as intensely and with as much involvement as they do the works of other composers. What I see with critical eyes here is the lack of consideration for style that occurs when Baroque works are treated symphonically. Almost everything that musicological research on Bach has brought forth over the last decades and has made available to practicing musicians is ignored here. We know today that Bach performed his St. John Passion with a maximum of thirty singers and the St. Matthew Passion with forty-five. In addition, there were twenty instrumentalists for the former work and a maximum of thirty-five for the latter. Why not give Bach the justice of the smaller complement of strings that has long been the rule in the performance of Mozart? What one gains in intensity of sound with large string forces does not compensate for the loss of balance within the ensemble as a whole. Even in tutti sections, Bach's compositions still possess a chamber-music quality. The solo wind instruments, which are given obbligato parts, must not be lost under the rest of the ensemble; Bach's concept of internal balance must constantly remain audible. It goes without saying that, in addition to the fundamental question of the performing forces to be used, the use of thoughtfully differentiated articulation plays a large role, that crescendo,diminuendo schemes can be introduced only where the structure of the work itself justifies it, and that the choice of vocal soloists must take into account their basic integrality with the sound of the choir as well as with the accompanying solo instruments of the orchestra.

The institutional cooperation between symphony orchestras and local choirs is something I hold to be very important, because this forges a link between professional and amateur music making that is profitable for both sides. When works by Bach are on the program, the criteria for quality should be twofold: on one hand, that there has been a considered application of the appropriate principles of style, and on the other hand, that the performance embodies the spirit that characterizes the original objective of Bach's church music.

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