Tuesday Bach 7:1:25 St Mary's Ewell with Jonathan Holmes

Tuesday Bach at St Mary’s Ewell January 7th, 2025, from 1.05pm - 1.35pm
Jonathan Holmes
Programme
Two Chorale Preludes on ‘In Dulci Jubilo’ BWV 729 and BWV 608
‘Das alte Jahr vergangen ist’ BWV 614
‘In dir ist Freude’ BWV 615
Trio Sonata in D minor BWV 527
1. Andante 2. Adagio e dolce 3. Vivace
Prelude in G major BWV 568
Notes
BWV 729 Bach’s extrovert setting of "In dulci jubilo,", with its dense chords, bold harmonies, and jubilant improvisatory interludes, contrasts greatly with his more intimate BWV 608 Orgelbüchlein setting. The well-known chorale has been popular for hundreds of years, with the Christmas carol ‘In dulci jubilo’ originating in the fourteenth century. The melody was originally intended to be sung in canon. Bach immediately seizes this musical opportunity in BWV 608, with middle voices augmenting the lyrical melody with complex harmony. The Pedal plays the theme in canon on a high stop.
“Das alte Jahr vergangen ist,” BWV 614, has always been highly prized by critics and performers, Schumann published it in 1839, calling it “a strange chorale prelude,” and Mendelssohn is known to have admired it.
“Das alte Jahr” makes a sharp contrast, too, with the next chorale, “In dir ist Freude”; the two are frequently performed together. It’s easy to see these two chorales as representing the old and the new year, respectively, in a Janus-faced pairing. This is the first of just four “ornamented chorales” in the Orgelbüchlein. These are pieces in which Bach decorates the tune with an elaborate arabesque, so that the original melody notes are hidden underneath all the decoration.
'In dir ist Freude', Short-short-short-long is the rhythm of the melodic fragment around which this chorale prelude is constructed. They are the four opening notes of an extremely cheerful New Year’s carol, which in turn is based on a sixteenth century balletto by Gastoldi in triple time. This explains both the dance-like character of the piece and its tempo. The rhythmical motif keeps recurring on other notes in the hymn and It is only by degrees that we get to hear the whole melody, but even then the little motif keeps popping up. It is a joke that is well suited to the irrepressibly cheerful festoons that decorate the notes. It is supported in the bass by an ostinato with features reminiscent of a carillon. This, too, endorses the jubilant words - a hymn of praise to the coming of Christ and the New Year.
To the ears of seventeenth and eighteenth-century musicologists like Mattheson, Rousseau and Schubart, the key of D minor represented melancholy, devotion, solemnity and seriousness. And Bach must have had similar ideas, as the opening of this sonata in D minor illustrates; but Bach soon launches into experimentation, by juggling motifs almost wildly and searching for new keys.
The whole piece is constructed like a simple conversation between the two upper parts, accompanied by a continuo bass. The Adagio seems to be an elegant, uncomplicated duet. Bach reused it himself in his Concerto in A minor, BWV 1044, and Mozart used it in his String trio, KV 405a.
The final movement, an exuberant Vivace, makes more technical demands on the organist. In its form, this two-part fugue resembles a rondo, with a catalogue of imitating triplet figures jumping from part to part, in between the repetitions of the theme.
The Prelude in G major BWV 568 written during the composer's Arnstadt years (1703-1707) is an early work. it exhibits Bach's deft sense of keyboard colour and festive mood.
Above held pedal notes the theme is split between statements of scale-like runs down the keyboard and big ‘spread’chords, the two elements imaginatively presented in combination.
Tea will be served in the Parish Room after the recital. Donations to the organ fund are always welcome. Gift Aid envelopes are available.