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Motet   Komm, Jesu, komm!   (bwv 229)   Chorus   Komm, Jesu…       This excerpt from a two-choir motet (roughly, a cantata with minimal accompaniment) opens with a pleading, rising "Come, come, come, come Jesus" of stunning power. (All that Vivaldi study paid off after all…) The plaintive quality of the request begins to weaken at 0:45 as the two choirs lose their unity and go their separate ways over die Kraft verschwindt je mehr und mehr ("my strength wanes more and more"). It is striking that each verse beats to a different rhythm. At 2:03, a descending diminished seventh interval brings a striking dissonance (A Bb C# D) over the text in Der saure Weg wird mir zu schwer ("the bitter path becomes too difficult for me"). At 3:51, the chorus switches time from 3/2 to 6/8, giving the melody a lilting flow to match the famous line from John's gospel: du bist der rechte Weg, die Wahrheit und das Leben ("You are the way, the truth, and the life").

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The Art of Fugue   Contrapunctus 13, rectus   (bwv 1080)       The seal shown above displays the initials JSB and their mirror image. It's roughly the principle of a mirror fugue, which consists of two "inverted" fugues. Bach uses six mirrors at once, which is nothing short of miraculous. The result is bouncy carnival-like music of catchy elegance. The Art of Fugue is a précis of Bach's instrumental science: think of a textbook where Newton might explain how the universe works. Just as the motion of the stars does not depend on any telescope, the Art of Fugue is not bound to any particular instrument. Here's contrapunctus 2, which highlights the basic melodic theme: D A F D C# D E F F G F E D. There is no evidence that Bach ever intended this material to be performed in public. It's an instructional vehicle. The last (unfinished) fugue builds on the melody, Bb A C B, which, in German notation, spells B A C H.

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St John Passion   Johannes-Passion   (bwv 245)   Aria   Es ist vollbracht!       In his last words on the cross, Jesus declares himself done with his work: "It is finished." This is one of Bach's most enigmatic arias. The title comes from the word Tetelestai, meaning "Paid in full." This is what your invoice would say after the plumber came to fix your sink in first-century Anatolia, where the gospel of John is thought to have been written. Instead of the sink, make this the sins of the world and you get the idea. At 1:43, vor die gekränkten Seelen ("for the ailing soul"), Scholl (remember him?) drops from B to C#, almost a whole octave! Unlike most opera writers, Bach treated the voice like any other instrument, sometimes overlooking minor technicalities such as the need of singers to breathe. At 2:30, the countertenor holds that C# for 13 seconds on Die Trauernacht ("woeful night")! The middle part (3:43), Der Held aus Juda siegt mit Macht ("Judea's hero conquers with might") breaks the tone of despondency. It features long melismas on kampf and macht to end abruptly with the voice, a highly unusual signoff. No one can touch Andreas Scholl but such is Bach's universal "plasticity" that Marian Anderson's Hollywoodian vollbracht works for me. A technical point. In the second measure, Bach modulates to Em, the fourth of the key (Bm). Instead of just going there, as any rock song would, he first modulates to B major perhaps to set the cadence V7-i and land in the desired Em. But that would be too simple, so Bach does it in two steps: V-iv followed by V7-i. By adding the leading tone D# to the mix (to resolve to the new root E), he uses a diminished-seventh substitution to produce B-Am-D#dim7-Em. This is modulation of the highest caliber. Surprised?

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Passacaglia and Fugue   in C minor   (bwv 582) As a teenager given to sweeping pronouncements, I once declared the Passacaglia in Cm the most beautiful piece of music ever written. As much as I loved the monumental Chaconne in Dm (which I learned to play on the guitar, badly), the Passacaglia struck me as the superior piece, unconcerned whether such a judgment even made sense let alone was true. The Chaconne is the work of a grief-stricken husband who's just lost the love of his life. Like much of hip hop, but unlike the blues, it is sad on the inside. The Passacaglia is dramatic on the outside but achingly gentle inside. It is remarkable that Bach wrote such a mature piece in his early twenties (or so historians think). It shares with the Chaconne, the Goldberg Variations, the Musical Offering, and the Art of Fugue the basic quality of an extended variation on a short, fixed theme: here, C G Eb F G Ab F G D Eb B C F G G C (all those flats because the key of Cm has three of them). After the head, the composer is supposed to go on as long as his creative juices allow him. Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins practiced this sport in Kansas City. The gradual buildup climaxes at 5:00 but it's the calm after the storm that chokes you with emotion: the arpeggios at 6:06. I can't overstate the power that passage has had over me throughout my life. It's like the second movement of Beethoven's seventh, only meatier. The piece goes through 21 iterations and then abruptly switches to a double fugue (8:58) whose 12 segments conclude with an enormous fermata on a Neapolitan chord: that's the big pause on the Db chord, half a step above the root, which you hear at 13:38. A short coda signs off with the final C major chord, the restorative modulation of church music. The passacaglia is a difficult piece to appreciate to its fullest and I still discover something new every time I hear it. While not a huge fan of his conducting, I think Richter nails this one. Bravo, maestro!

— Bernard Chazelle, January 2013   

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