Chorale Wednesdays
Each week, Sonoma Bach's Music Director Robert Worth will choose one of our favorite Bach Chorales, each a brilliant miniature of Bach's astonishing craft, for us all to learn at our own pace. Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to learn to sing your part and then join your voice with the voices and instruments of the professional recording.
We will provide the score and translations, a midi practice track, and a professional recording, all listed below.
Each week, Sonoma Bach's Music Director Robert Worth will choose one of our favorite Bach Chorales, each a brilliant miniature of Bach's astonishing craft, for us all to learn at our own pace. Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to learn to sing your part and then join your voice with the voices and instruments of the professional recording.
We will provide the score and translations, a midi practice track, and a professional recording, all listed below.
Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ
Scandellous!--Yeah, yeah, I actually do know how to spell that word--
However, here I'm making an attention-grabbing pun (you're reading this, aren't you?) on the name of a fellow who's involved in today's chorale post: Antonio Scandello (1517-1580), who was born in Bergamo in northern Italy (near Milano),
but who spent most of his career working at the court of the electors of Saxony at Dresden, eventually rising to the rank of Kapellmeister in 1568.
As far as I know, Scandello wasn't involved in any scandalous activity; but he was a crackerjack composer of whom we should see and hear more, and below I offer a wonderful setting--Creatures of Night, Brought to Light!
--for your consideration.
First we have to introduce the chorale upon which Scandello's setting is based, new to me and discovered by virtue of pure serendipity. In planning for today's project, I was searching for 'Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr', and right next to it in the list was 'Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ'. I thought, why not check it out? What's the worst that could happen?
I'm sure glad I did. It is a most unusual and beautiful song in its own right, and in addition has served as fruitful grist for the compositional mill over almost five centuries. Attached you will find a melody sheet which is well worth perusing, and a little recording of the tune as well. I've never seen or heard anything quite like it.
For one thing, the song doesn't quite seem to know what key it's in. But this vacillation betwixt C major and A minor is one of its charms. The phrases are irregular in length. There are lots of hemiolae and little syncopations. And it has an interesting repeat structure.
Musicologists seem to have no idea who wrote the tune, which strikes me as distinctly secular; but we have no record of any antecedents. It appears for the first time in 1540 in connection with Konrad Hubert's hymn text.
Overall, it's a bit of an enigma, conveying (to me, at any rate) a special frisson on this beautiful winter's morning.
Once you've gotten to know the tune a bit, check out the attached recording for Scandello's setting. I found the recording almost immediately when I started snooping around the web for materials; but the score was not available. I did, however, find the original 1575 partbooks--see discantus part attached if you're interested in seeing what this stuff looked like upon publication--and was able to make a transcription (also attached).
I love the way Scandello integrates the melody into every one of the six voices--it inhabits the entire texture in a most wonderful way, especially perceptible once I really got to know the tune. (He made a 7-part setting of 'Nun freut euch lieben Christen g'mein', one of my favorite chorales (and perhaps one of your favorites too in its guise in Bach's 'Christmas Oratorio': 'Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier'). I'm working on a transcription of that, and I suspect it may well be part of our collective life in the future.)
Bach used 'Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ' on multiple occasions. As one would expect, by his time some of its eccentricities had been smoothed out; but in his settings it is still a beautiful and unusual tune. I am attaching scores for three pieces; recordings are linked below:
Cantata 33, a Second Jahrgang piece based upon our chorale. The first movement is a breakneck exploration of the tune, with pyrotechnic oboistic displays. And the final chorale is well worth checking out as well, as Bach wrings out the tune for all it's worth.
Independent chorale BWV 261; again, like the closing chorale of BWV 33, Bach seems to really enjoy setting our tune!
The Neumeister chorales, discovered under a rock (or some such) at Yale in the 1980's, contain 31 previously unknown chorales by J.S. Bach, including this charming setting of 'Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ'.
Scandellous!--Yeah, yeah, I actually do know how to spell that word--
However, here I'm making an attention-grabbing pun (you're reading this, aren't you?) on the name of a fellow who's involved in today's chorale post: Antonio Scandello (1517-1580), who was born in Bergamo in northern Italy (near Milano),
but who spent most of his career working at the court of the electors of Saxony at Dresden, eventually rising to the rank of Kapellmeister in 1568.
As far as I know, Scandello wasn't involved in any scandalous activity; but he was a crackerjack composer of whom we should see and hear more, and below I offer a wonderful setting--Creatures of Night, Brought to Light!
--for your consideration.
First we have to introduce the chorale upon which Scandello's setting is based, new to me and discovered by virtue of pure serendipity. In planning for today's project, I was searching for 'Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr', and right next to it in the list was 'Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ'. I thought, why not check it out? What's the worst that could happen?
I'm sure glad I did. It is a most unusual and beautiful song in its own right, and in addition has served as fruitful grist for the compositional mill over almost five centuries. Attached you will find a melody sheet which is well worth perusing, and a little recording of the tune as well. I've never seen or heard anything quite like it.
For one thing, the song doesn't quite seem to know what key it's in. But this vacillation betwixt C major and A minor is one of its charms. The phrases are irregular in length. There are lots of hemiolae and little syncopations. And it has an interesting repeat structure.
Musicologists seem to have no idea who wrote the tune, which strikes me as distinctly secular; but we have no record of any antecedents. It appears for the first time in 1540 in connection with Konrad Hubert's hymn text.
Overall, it's a bit of an enigma, conveying (to me, at any rate) a special frisson on this beautiful winter's morning.
Once you've gotten to know the tune a bit, check out the attached recording for Scandello's setting. I found the recording almost immediately when I started snooping around the web for materials; but the score was not available. I did, however, find the original 1575 partbooks--see discantus part attached if you're interested in seeing what this stuff looked like upon publication--and was able to make a transcription (also attached).
I love the way Scandello integrates the melody into every one of the six voices--it inhabits the entire texture in a most wonderful way, especially perceptible once I really got to know the tune. (He made a 7-part setting of 'Nun freut euch lieben Christen g'mein', one of my favorite chorales (and perhaps one of your favorites too in its guise in Bach's 'Christmas Oratorio': 'Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier'). I'm working on a transcription of that, and I suspect it may well be part of our collective life in the future.)
Bach used 'Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ' on multiple occasions. As one would expect, by his time some of its eccentricities had been smoothed out; but in his settings it is still a beautiful and unusual tune. I am attaching scores for three pieces; recordings are linked below:
Cantata 33, a Second Jahrgang piece based upon our chorale. The first movement is a breakneck exploration of the tune, with pyrotechnic oboistic displays. And the final chorale is well worth checking out as well, as Bach wrings out the tune for all it's worth.
Independent chorale BWV 261; again, like the closing chorale of BWV 33, Bach seems to really enjoy setting our tune!
The Neumeister chorales, discovered under a rock (or some such) at Yale in the 1980's, contain 31 previously unknown chorales by J.S. Bach, including this charming setting of 'Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ'.
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